West Shore placed first overall in the small school sweepstakes at the NFCFL #5 on Jan. 18 in Orlando, FL, with key contributors placing high.

Member Ehab El-Ahmad took third place in the public forum event.

“We did really well as a team,” said El-Ahmad. “William placed third in public forum and Sruthi Sharma got second place in declamation.”

Despite excitement from the team over results, El-Ahmad says there is still room for improvement.

“I think we could have worked better as a team in terms of research,” said El-Ahmad. “Some people didn’t have enough evidence, and some people had more than enough.”

Overall, El-Ahmad argued that the debate team competed well because they had been conditioning themselves to be able to accomplish their achievements in this competition. 

“We definitely looked into the resolution a lot, and found, you know, good arguments that kind of put the other team in a position they weren’t able to respond to,” said El-Ahmad.

These results were encouraging for the team as this was the first competition for many of the participants at the varsity level.

“We’re progressing as a team. Looking at our past results versus now, we’ve definitely improved,” said El-Ahmad.

By Shoaib Ahmed