A Little Catholic Perfection
Things did not start well. As of the Monday before the tournament, JCU Debate had four teams entered in the debate tournament at Catholic. We were represented in all three divisions. Unfortunately, a series of unfortunate of events reduced that number from four to one by the time the tournament started, but in that one, JCU found perfection.
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Sean McClure and Chris Schroeder continued the exceptional start to their debate career by going 6-0 in the preliminary rounds. They did so while debating an unbelievably difficult set of teams in the prelims. Excluding our rounds against them, two of our opponents had 3-2 records against the rest of the field (Boston College & George Mason); two of our opponents were 4-1 against the rest of the field (Army & Vanderbilt); and two of our opponents were perfect against the rest of the field (Liberty & Liberty). But, a tough draw was not an impediment for Chris and Sean, who rolled to their second consecutive undefeated set of preliminary rounds. Not only did their performance place them first in the 25 team field, but it ran their streak of consecutive preliminary wins to 12, and took their career prelim record to 20-4. |
| Their elimination round performance may have been even more impressive. Their top seeding earned them a bye in the octafinals, but they then proceeded to win unanimous decisions over Vanderbilt (quarters), Howard (semis) and George Mason (finals). The end result was a perfect 9-0 record at the tournament (10-0 if one includes the octafinal bye they earned) and a perfect 15-0 run on judges' ballots. It also meant that in an 8 day span, they won 16 of 17 debates PLUS 2 elimination round byes based on top seedings. Their elimination round record is now an excellent 6-3 (8-3 with those byes). Perhaps most impressively five of their elim wins are on unanimous decisions, while all of their elimination round losses are on 2-1 decisions. |
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Indivdually, Chris (5th ) and Sean (3rd ) both took high honors in the 50-debater field. It was the second consecutive week they finished 3rd and 5th as individual debaters, although this time they reversed positions. It was one more indication of the balance of this team, that has steadily improved. In their brief four-tournament, career, they have steadily improved from 5th to 3rd to 2nd to 1st. An exceptional first two months of their careers for Sean McClure and Chris Schroeder. |
