Rutgers celebrates breaking to varsity quarters every weekend after the first this year. This time, in a hallway at GW. Left to right: Chris Baia, Kai Rau, Quinn Maingi, Deepta Janardhan, Ashley Novak, Raynee Morris, Gordon Morrisette, Bhargavi Sriram, Rachel Moon, Henry Phipps, Storey Clayton, Nisha Kumar, Alex Jubb, Chris Bergman, Arbi Llaveshi, Kurt Falk, Maxwell Williams, Adam Bomeisl, Amanda Gaetano, and Russell Potter.
The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) broke to at least varsity quarterfinals at its 7th straight varsity weekend and broke at its 8th straight weekend overall at APDA-style tournaments with an 8th place finish by Adam Bomeisl and Russell Potter this weekend at George Washington University. The first of GW’s two scheduled tournaments this season kept RUDU in 4th place overall in the APDA standings and brought Bomeisl and Potter closer to qualifying for Nationals.
Here are the official results:
Adam Bomeisl & Russell Potter – 8th Team
Sean Leonard & Raynee Morris – 7th Novice Team
Sean Leonard – 2nd Novice Speaker
The award for Leonard places him 6th overall in the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings, trailing a novice from Brandeis and two from Northeastern, one of whom is the brother of RUDU’s own Kurt Falk, along with two novices from Columbia.
Bomeisl, Potter, Leonard, and Falk are among the eight debaters on RUDU currently half-qualified for Nationals or better. Ashley Novak, currently the 3rd-ranked Speaker of the Year (SOTY) is fully qualified for Nationals with two weekends to go in the first semester. Chris Bergman, Quinn Maingi, Gordon Morrisette, and Alex Jubb are also over halfway qualified.
RUDU’s record for individual qualifications in a single season is five, set in 2010-2011. Novak and Bergman were among those five two years ago.
The top five overall teams in APDA remain unchanged after this weekend at GW. They are Yale, Brandeis, Harvard, Rutgers, and Johns Hopkins, in that order.
This coming weekend features the Fordham tournament, which predates Thanksgiving and the final weekend of the semester before Rutgers and the league recess for winter break.
