An Undefeated Team Win - Amazing! On Feb. 4, at Long Island's Debate Eliminations tournament, held at Sayville H.S., sophomores Charly Coden and Stephen Schmidt won 1st place in Public Forum Debate, winning 4-0, the only undefeated team in their division, qualifying them for the New York State Championships in Speech and Debate, which will be held April 29-30. They successfully debated both the PRO and the CON sides on this month's topic: Resolved: The United States should increase diplomatic efforts to resolve internal armed conflicts in West Asia. Dr. Michael Andrews, their debate coach, remarked, "Their success is a tribute to their hard work at gathering of evidence, writing and editing of cases, composing of chains of cross-examination questions, and practicing of rebuttals as well as their natural talent at thinking on their feet and their knowledge of history." They will be joined at States by Public Forum Debate qualifiers Fiona Meier and Amber Zhou as well as Oral Interpretation Speech qualifiers Casandra Reilly and Hailey Rosato. Congratulations to the entire Speech and Debate Team!