Debate Team’s Sucess Leaves No Room for Argument

By The Hawk staff

The Hanover High Debate Team racked up an impressive number of wins and awards in the Eastern Mass Debate League Competition. At the final debate and awards ceremony at Bridgewater-Raynham High School on Feb. 26, four out of five varsity debate pairs won their final rounds. Even better, several students earned league awards for outstanding performance for the entire season. Junior Alana Cole took home first place among all individual varsity speakers; junior Ava Khouri won second and junior Abbey Corbo grabbed third. Sophomore Sam Frattasio earned 5th place and Senior Ruby Telepak finished 9th. Among two-person varsity affirmative teams who scored the highest for the season, Cole and Corbo won third place and Telepak and Khouri finished 10th. The HHS team is coached by Mrs. Allyson Gately.

The Eastern Mass Debate League includes 13 schools and 48 four-person teams which this year competed in 8 rounds of debates starting in December. Teams must prepare a variety of resources in order to argue the season’s resolve. Affirmative teams create and deliver a specific argument connected to the resolve, and negative teams have to be prepared to rebut whatever argument their opponent creates. This year’s resolve was The United States federal government should significantly strengthen its protection of domestic intellectual property rights in copyrights, patents and/or trademarks.