The Lower Columbia College Fighting Smelt Speech & Debate Team opened the Northwest
Forensics Conference (NFC) season with a decisive victory at the Steve Hunt Classic
tournament, hosted by Lewis and Clark College. In addition to being the top community
college in both speech and debate competition, LCC finished fourth place overall among
the 26 colleges and universities in the field, including top national and
regional programs Rice University, Carroll College, and Oregon State University.
This result at the large and highly competitive early-season tournament establishes LCC as an early favorite for several season-long NFC awards.
This strong opening result was a true team effort, with six different students winning awards.
Mercedes Musser led the team in sweepstakes points and advanced to elimination rounds in every one of her events. Musser finished third in junior impromptu speaking, third in junior editorial commentary, fifth in junior extemporaneous speaking, and advanced to the semifinal round of open IPDA debate.
Damien Lucero was the champion of junior editorial commentary, and additionally advanced to the quarterfinal round of junior IPDA debate.
Divaa Nchau was the runner up in junior editorial commentary and advanced to the octofinal round of junior IPDA debate.
Dounia Zahra advanced to elimination rounds for the first time in her collegiate career, including semifinals in novice IPDA debate and finishing fifth in junior informative speaking. She was also named fifth best novice IPDA speaker.
Izzy Whiton was a finalist in novice impromptu speaking, junior persuasive speaking, and junior editorial commentary.
Alex White finished fifth in novice extemporaneous speaking and was an octofinalist in novice IPDA debate. White was also named third best novice IPDA speaker.
Also representing the Fighting Smelt were LCC students Jared Doherty, Sienna Payne, Izabelle White, and Jonah Martin.
The squad received coaching support from program alumni Mara Slabu, Vickey Chen, Ethan Cooper, Seamus Mahoney, and Rebecca Pickner, as well as LCC faculty and staff Alex Brehm, Kailie Drumm and Alexander Ivory-Brown.
Next up for LCC Speech and Debate is the Peters Invitational tournament, hosted by
Pacific University the weekend of October 24-25.
Contact:
Alex Brehm
Director of Forensics
Communication Studies Instructor
Lower Columbia College
abrehm@lowercolumbia.edu
(360) 442-2670