This weekend Washburn Debate competed at the Winter at the Beach annual invitational hosted by California State University at Long Beach.

Parliamentary debate squads joining Washburn’s included: Biola University (La Mirada, CA), California State University Long Beach (Long Beach, CA), Cerritos College (Norwalk, CA), Concordia University Irvine (Irvine, CA), El Camino College (Torrance, CA), Florida International University (Miami, FL), Glendale Community College at AZ (Glendale, AZ), Grand Canyon University (Phoenix, AZ), Irvine Valley College (Irvine, CA), Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff , AZ), Palomar College (San Marcos, CA), Rio Hondo College (Whittier, CA), San Diego State University (San Diego, CA), Speech and Debate at Compton (Compton, CA), University of California Berkeley (Berkeley, CA), University of California Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA), University of Colorado Boulder (Boulder, CO), University of Utah (Salt Lake City UT), Western Wyoming Community College (Rock Springs, WY), and William Jewell College (Liberty, MO).

The Winter at the Beach was an eight round preliminary competition that then cleared all teams 5-3 or better to a series of five single-elimination rounds.

Building on our recent squad successes in Salt Lake City, Washburn, once again, cleared all five of its traveling teams. The team of Bailey Hockett (fr.) and Kelly Burns (fr.) finished as a double octafinalist. The team of Kaitlyn Bull (so.) and Ryan Kelly (so.) as well as the team of Matt Parnell (so.) and Grant Waters (so.) both ended up as octafinalists.

After that our two remaining teams–one consisting of Ian Mikkelsen (sr.) and Dan Lyon (sr.), the other consisting of Quintin Brown (jr.) and Evan Johnson (jr.)–stormed through the rest of the elimination rounds to “close out” the championship round at the Winter at the Beach. On our way to being the final two teams standing, we beat competitive teams from UCLA, California Berkeley, Colorado Boulder, Concordia Irvine, San Diego State University, California State Long Beach, among others.

In terms of individual speaker awards, Evan Johnson, Quintin Brown, and Ian Mikkelsen were recognized as the second, third and fourth overall speakers from a field of just over 100. Dan Lyon was recognized as the tenth and Ryan Kelly the sixteenth overall speaker. Washburn also easily pulled ahead of our rivals as the top overall debate squad at the Winter at the Beach.