Jan 31, 2011
[Update] Nine Harker upper school students qualified the last weekend in January for the NCFL Grand National Tournament in Washington D.C. in May.

Closing out the final round of Public Forum debate, sophomores Aneesh Chona and Anuj Sharma along with juniors Frederic Enea and Aakash Jagadeesh were named co-champions of the qualifying event. Freshmen Maneesha Panja and Neil Khemani were named second alternates and juniors Shival Dasu and Jay Reddy earned the third alternate spot after finishing the tournament as quarterfinalists. Harker also swept the speaker awards in Public Forum with Jagadeesh placing first, Chona placed second, Khemani placed third, Enea was fourth and Sharma was fifth.

 In Lincoln-Douglas debate, junior Sankalp Raju went undefeated in preliminary rounds and earned a qualifying spot as a semifinalist at the tournament.

 Harker also saw success in Congressional debate where junior Muralikrishna Joshi placed second and earned a qualifying spot. Freshman Adarsh Battu placed sixth and earned the second alternate spot while freshman Srikar Pyda earned the third alternate spot.

 Individual Event competitors earned spots in two events. Senior James Seifert will compete in Dramatic Performance while freshmen Andy Wang and Zina Jawadi earned spots in Original Oratory.

 In early February students will compete at both the state qualifier in Public Forum debate as well as the Golden Desert TOC Qualifier in Las Vegas, Nev. Courtesy of Carol Green

Jan. 26, 2011
Last season Harker’s Public Forum program had a multiweek win streak in 2010 and is starting 2011 the same way. On Jan. 14-16, Harker sent 30 students to compete at the James Logan High School tournament in Union City, Calif., and six students to compete at the Lexington High School tournament outside of Boston, Mass.

At Logan, Saachi Jain, grade 9 and Kathir Sundarraj, grade 10, advanced to finals of Congressional Debate. In Public Forum debate, the team of Kristi Lui, grade 12 and Justine Lu, grade 10, reached octafinals (top 16), while the team of Reyhan Kader, grade 10 and Ziad Jawadi, grade 12, advanced to quarterfinals (top eight).

At Lexington, the team of Maneesha Panja and Neil Khemani,  both grade 9, reached double-octafinals (top 32), while the team of Stephanie Lu and Katherine Paseman, both grade 9, rocketed all the way to the final round, thus becoming the fifth Harker Public Forum team to be fully qualified for the Tournament of Champions this May.

At the Victory Briefs tournament at UCLA on Jan. 21-24, the combined efforts of all 13 students competing under the Harker banner earned 65 sweepstakes points for the team, which earned Harker a first-place tie for school sweeps with Harvard-Westlake. Every win was counted towards this accomplishment and it couldn’t have happened without the whole team!

In Public Forum, the teams of Rohan Bopardikar/Akshay Jagadeesh and Fred Enea/Aakash Jagadeesh, all grade 11, closed out the division and were named co-champions, having defeated local rivals Saint Francis and Lynbrook on 3-0 decisions in semifinals. Anuj Sharma and Aneesh Chona, both grade 10, dropped a close 2-1 decision in quarterfinals (top eight). For the third year Harker claimed the Public Forum championship at Victory Briefs, and this is the second time the squad closed out finals. Bopardikar and Akshay Jagadeesh also took first and second speaker respectively.