Senior Brynnalese Nelson and Junior Jeannine Lopez won the two-speaker debate championship against the other 40 teams who were there in Hutch Friday and Saturday.

“I wasn’t expecting to be one [state champion],” Nelson said. “It was nice to see my hard work pay off.”

With winning the championship these girls both said they put in a lot of work outside of school practicing for this.

“We practice two days out of the week for one to two hours each day,” Lopez said. “The practices consist of doing a lot of research, speed drills, practicing debate, and getting all the evidence ready for our tournaments.” 

With three seniors leaving this year Shephard said he isn’t worried about his team’s future.

“In the four speaker debate our team got 4th, which is right outside of winning a trophy,” Shephard said. “And that team did not have a senior on it so we feel really good about having that young team on the other end.”

Along with Shepherd, Nelson also believes their team has a pretty good hold on the future years debate teams.

“The number of people on our team has been decreasing,” Nelson said. “But my partner will still be on the team so we will have a winning team.”