The extensive Rutgers crew at TCNJ gathers for the photo to document the trip. Left to right: Grisam Shah, Becky Ratero, George Alukal, Lin Lan, Storey Clayton, Nick Hansen, Maxwell Williams, Deepta Janardhan, Gordon Morrisette, Russell Potter, Josh Pomerantz, Adam Bomeisl, Soham Shukla, Henry Phipps, Quinn Maingi, Zach Sinkiewicz, Chris Bergman, Suraj Oza, Rachel Moon, Vidhaath Sripathi, Ali Ismail, and Nimit Jindal. (Not pictured: Arbi Llaveshi, Victoria Disla, and Jason Boyle.)
The Rutgers University Debate Union (RUDU) maintained its national fifth ranking with another top ten performance at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) last weekend. Rutgers made appearances in both varsity and novice elimination rounds and Henry Phipps won 5th speaker to join the Speaker of the Year (SOTY) rankings for this first time this season.
Here are the awards RUDU earned at TCNJ:
Henry Phipps & Rachel Moon – 8th Team
Henry Phipps – 5th Speaker
Suraj Oza & Vidhaath Sripathi – 4th Novice Team
Nimit Jindal – 8th Novice Speaker
Zach Sinkiewicz – 9th Novice Speaker
The break for Oza & Sripathi to novice out-rounds was their second as a team, after they did the same at the William & Mary tournament last semester. They dropped a narrow 2-1 decision on Gov against Yale.
Meanwhile, the varsity elimination round appearance was the third for Phipps & Moon. All three, at William & Mary, Penn, and TCNJ, have resulted in 8th place finishes. The pairing is the 40th ranked partnership on the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) circuit.
Phipps joins the SOTY rankings as the 46th ranked speaker on APDA. He joins five teammates on that board, led by 8th-ranked Ashley Novak, who is hoping to finish the year as the first Rutgers debater ever in the individual top ten at season’s end. She was ranked as high as first at one point this year, the first time a Rutgers debater has achieved that distinction.
The novice speaker awards were the third for Jindal and second for Sinkiewicz, both just narrowly outside the Novice of the Year (NOTY) rankings. Jindal and his partner George Alukal just missed the varsity break this weekend with a “bubble round” loss to American University, the second straight weekend for Alukal bubbling with a novice partner.
Rutgers will be hosting APDA for the tournament this weekend, the thirteenth annual Rutgers Invitational. For the second year in the last three, it will be a major “unopposed” tournament, being the only one on the schedule for the league and hosting a meeting of APDA’s governing body.
