While students spent their President’s Day weekend with their friends, 12 Archer debaters traveled up north to the University of California, Berkeley to compete in the 2017  Cal High School Speech and Debate Tournament. The annual Cal Invitational is one of the largest speech and debate tournaments in the country for high school students.

The annual Cal Invitational is one of the largest speech and debate tournaments in the country for high school students. Archer girls competed in three novice public forum pairs and two varsity public forum pairs. The girls were chaperoned by English teacher Kate Webster and debate coach Salilah Gray.

Ciel Torres ’17 and Isabel Adler ’17, Marine Yamada ’17 and Isabelle Wilson ’17, and Natalie Grant ’19 and Olivia Richards ’19 competed in varsity public forum. In novice public forum were Isabella Silvers ’20 and Anna Brodsky ’20, Drew Kretchmer ’20 and Allie Worchell ’20, Charley Griffiths ’20 and Abigale Lischack ’20.

“It was very eye-opening because in the local level we do pretty well and we are undefeated in a lot of the tournaments, but at Berkeley — not even close,” Yamada said.

All four seniors have participated in the debate program since ninth grade. Adler wrote about her experience at this tournament and with debate in her most recent column.

The travel opportunity provided the students an opportunity to bond with each other along with getting more experience debating. They had about a month to prepare for the competition.

Now that the four seniors are graduating, Yamada hopes that future debaters will take the team to a whole new level.

“It showed [the tournament] us that we still have a lot of improving to do,” she said, “but I have a lot of hope that the girls in the grades below us will carry the debate team to more success.”