Debate celebrated a first place victory at the Virginia High School League State Championship, tying with Thomas Jefferson and placing first and second in the Lincoln Douglas debate category.

Seniors Jeffrey Di Santo and Kshitj Kumar represented South Lakes as AAA competitors in Lincoln Douglas debate with Di Santo placing first in the state and Kumar second after a final round debate between the two teammates.

This situation was not new to either competitor, as they were paired against each other in the Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensic League’s Metro Finals tournament earlier this year. WACFL discourages allowing teammates to debate, so debate coach Cheryl Finley had to choose whether to split the ballots or award both ballots to one of the competitors.

Finley made the decision to give Di Santo both ballots after evaluating their individual records and speaker points, allowing Di Santo to continue on in the competition and ultimately qualify for the National Catholic Forensic League’s national debate tournament.

“We didn’t expect it to happen at States, but we were like ‘if it does’ then we would like to debate it out,” Kumar said. “We didn’t want a repeat of what happened at Metros.”

The success of Kumar and Di Santo cumulated in their tie with TJ, a school prominent in the speech and debate community.

“We recognize TJ as one of our biggest competitors,” Finley said.

Kumar and Di Santo had succeeded in shutting TJ out of the Lincoln Douglas debate category earlier in the school year, defeating them at strategic points at Districts and Regionals.

However, TJ took control of the public policy section of the debate tournament and had two of their own students placing first and second in the category.

“That’s why we ended up with an unbreakable tie,” Kumar said. “They had first place and second place in policy and we had first place and second place LD. With all of the win-lose records and everything added up, it was an unbreakable tie for the first time in VHSL history.”

Di Santo will compete at NCFL Nationals in Philadelphia May 25-26. Joining him will be the senior public forum team of Andrew Kropp-Sullivan and Rueben Levy-Myers and junior speech competitor Chiara Sauvage. Junior Grace Erard is the call-up in Lincoln Douglas for the tournament and  juniors Allyson Paiwonsky and Anna Stormoen are the call-ups in public forum as the result of their respective seventh place finishes at Metro Finals.

Debate also competed in the National Forensics League’s Virginia District Tournament at Madison County High School April 12-13. The tournament, one of 108 NFL district competitions held throughout the country, was the last step to secure a place at the 2013  NFL National Speech & Debate Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama June 16-21.

Erard and junior Nojan Hajiabbassi placed third and fifth in Lincoln Douglas debate respectively, marking the first time that South Lakes had debaters place in the top six and receive awards. Erard’s performance earned her the right to compete at NFL Nationals this summer.