JBS Law Debaters Gust Thru Guyer Field

The JBS Law Magnet debate team grabbed two top finishes at the Guyer TFA qualifier this weekend.

Ivan Garcia and Rolando Velasquez knocked off the top seed in Quarters and defeated Colleyville-Heritage in the Semi's on 3-0 decision before finally splitting a 2-1 decision against Greenhill in the Finals.  Team GV finished 2nd and earned 6 TFA State points.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman broke to Quarters in VLD and won the Top Speaker Award in the division. Kelsey also earned an additional 2 TFA points, bringing her total to 5 for the year.

The novice LD'rs also competed in their first tournament and did so in the varsity division. Congratulations to Jose Garcia, Maria Herrera and Kimberly Pesina for competing for the first time.  On a special note, Maria won one of her varsity rounds!

Next week, the team competes at Plano West.

NDCA Results

The NDCA released the final results of the NDCA Championships and Kelsey Annu-Essuman finished as the 32nd Seed. The tournament only broke to partial doubles, but had it broken to doubles, Kelsey would have qualified to the elimination rounds.

Next year's NDCA Championships will be hosted by UNLV in sunny Las Vegas!

UIL Spring Meet Results

UIL Spring Meet Results for the JBS Law Magnet in alphabetical order of the event.  1st-3rd Place winners received a medal and advance to compete in Regionals at Baylor University.  4th-5th Place alternates also get to travel to Waco as possible substitutes.

Computer Applications - 4th Place, Margarita Sanchez

Current Issues & Events - 8th Place, Reuben Howard

Headline Writing - 1st Place, Rolando Velasquez

Informative Speaking - 6th Place, Reuben Howard

Lincoln Douglas Debate - 2nd Place, Katia Ramirez

Poetry Interpretation - 1st Place, Lucero Pina
                                   4th Place, Quetzabel Benavides

Prose Interpretation - 3rd Place, Kelsey Annu-Essuman
                                  5th Place, Glyneisha Johnson

Ready Writing - 1st Place, Rolando Velasquez

It's Official: Kelsey Annu-Essuman Is Going to Scranton

After a day of being iced out of two tournaments, we needed some good news. We received confirmation from the National Debate Coaches Association that Kelsey Annu-Essuman has qualified for the Championships. The tournament will take place in mid April in Scranton, PA.

Congrats to Kelsey and the entire squad, for when one of us wins, we all win. This is the third year in a row we qualify someone to the NDCA Champs. This is Kelsey's second time qualifying.

VLD Squad Charges Flower Mound

After a two week period in which the LD squad had failed to have a single debater break into the out rounds, the VLD squad charged Flower Mound with a vengeance. Three VLD debaters broke and earned TFA points, matching a record recently set at Creekview.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman may have solidified her NDCA invitation this weekend by finishing 3rd in VLD. She leads the team with 25 TFA points.

Quetzabel Benavides keeps scratching out points towards TFA qualification. She now has a total of five points with two tournaments remaining.

Katia Ramirez added another TFA point to her stellar first year of debating. If she earns two more points, it will be the most ever by a first year LD debater. She needs a total of five to match the all time freshman mark set by Eddie Camacho and Charlie Stephens in their first year.

Garcia-Velasquez Qualify to TFA State

Ivan Garcia and Rolando Velasquez came within one round of giving the JBS Law Magnet back-to-back titles at Coppell. Garcia-Velasquez did finish in 3rd Place, earning four TFA points and have now qualified to TFA State. The team fought through eliminations rounds to an undefeated record of 4-0. They defeated Jesuit in the power matched round four and eliminated Benton in Quarters. The team dropped to St. Marks in Semis.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman continues to build a strong portfolio to qualify for the NDCA Championships. She finished 3rd in VLD and has now earned 19 TFA points, nearly double the points required to qualify for state.

The novices also went home with some hardware.  Ruben Garcia and Andre Lozano broke to Quarters in NCX and finished in 5th Place.  This marks the third time this year they have won trophies. Ana Giron broke in NLD for the first time. She defeated a Colleyville debater in Octos to advance to Quarters.  She finished in 5th. 

Garcia & Velasquez Win 2nd Place in VCX

Ivan Garcia and Rolando Velasquez beat Berkner and Grapevine on their way to claiming 2nd Place in Varsity CX at South Garland  High School. GV earned 6 TFA qualifying points for their performance.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman led the VLD squad with another Top 10 performance. She finished in 5th Placed and stocked up on two more TFA points, taking her to 15 total. Katia Ramirez (Freshman) debated in her first varsity tournament and held her own by winning rounds.

Alex Delgado became the latest NLD to break.  He finished in 9th place. Zaida Rosas came close to breaking, only missing by one speaker point.

Next week is an all varsity tournament at Creekview High School.

It's Official: Kelsey TFA Qualified!

The TFA website has recently been updated and it is now official - Kelsey Annu-Essuman is qualified.

TFA LD Qualifers

Kelsey Gets TFA Qualified While Entire JBS Law LD Squad Shines

Kelsey Annu-Essuman qualified to TFA State this weekend, by finishing in 3rd Place in Varsity LD Debate at the Williams High School tournaments.  Kelsey was also the 4th Best Speaker in VLD.  

Quetzabel Benavides also broke to the out rounds in VLD.  She finished in 5th Place and earned two more TFA points bringing her total to three.

Katia Ramirez continues to shine in Novice LD.  She finished in 3rd Place and won 2nd Place Best Speaker.  That is her second speaker award in two weeks.

Selena Yanez broke in NLD for the first time and finished in 9th Place.

The remainder of the LD squad had a productive weekend as Glyneisha Johnson, Yastril Nanez and Amahirany Villa were in 2-1 break rounds.

The LD Squad continues to show great progress.  The team may still have at least two more debaters qualify for TFA state. Additionally,  some of the NLD debaters have demonstrated that they will be ready to debate varsity in the Spring.  

Finally, the team would like to thank Ms. Guerrero for spotting Mr. G while he drove to the airport to pick up his wife.

The next tournament will be hosted by South Garland.

Hockaday LD Updates

Hockaday finally updated their results.  We had Best Speakers in VLD and NLD.  Kelsey Annu-Essuman won 4th Place Best Speaker in VLD and Katia Ramirez won 16th Place Best Speaker in NLD.

The Boys Rule at Hockaday

The Hockaday Tournament is one of the oldest TFA tournaments in the Dallas area.  It is also the most competitive non-TOC tournament on the Fall schedule.  This tournament is a good gauge (for better or worse) how well the JBS team stands up against the best teams in the area and Texas.

Ruben Garcia and Daniel Lozano demonstrated that they have the potential to be an NCX team to reckon with on the TFA circuit.  They garnered a 3-1 record to earn the 6th seed.  They beat a St. Mark's team to break and beat a Greenhill team to advance to the Quarter-Finals.  They finished in 5th Place. The JBS Law Magnet has not had an NCX team do this well at Hockaday since Eddie Camacho and Charlie Stevens were freshmen.

Haley Estrada and Tyffany Robles also broke in NCX as the 15th seed and dropped in Octos. Haley also won 16th Best Speaker.

Results for LD are unofficial as Hockaday has not posted them on the JOT site. Kelsey Annu-Essuman broke Octos and earned an additional two points towards qualification.  If the results hold up, she will be one point shy of qualifying.

Thanks go to Ivan Garcia for the photo of Ruben and Daniel with their Silver Platter awards.

Kat Attacks Mean Green

Katia Ramirez kept the JBS Law Magnet TFA break streak alive by breaking in NLD. She advanced to the quarter-finals and finished 5th Place.  She is the first NLD debater to break and win a trophy.  See her photo below.

Quetzabel Benavides and Kelsey Annu-Essuman earned 8th and 9th Place Best Speaker awards in Varsity LD.

Several of the "Barefoot Debaters" earned 3-2 records, narrowly missing the elimination rounds on speaker points. These included Haley Estrada and Tyffany Robles in NCX, Ivan Garcia and Rolando Velasquez in VCX, and Quetzabel and Kelsey in VLD.

The LD'rs also made significant strides by winning several rounds against Hockaday debaters.  Next week The Hockaday Classic!

Kelsey Hits Single at Plano West

While the Texas Rangers where on their way to winning their first World Series game, Kelsey Annu-Essuman rang up another point towards TFA qualification. She did it by breaking to Octo's at Plano West and finishing 10th. She has now accumulated 7 of the 10 points necessary to qualify and has continued her streak of breaking at every local TFA tournament in which she has competed.

Selena Yanez came .5 speaker points away from breaking for the first time as a Novice LD debater.  Rolando Velasquez and Ivan Garcia also missed breaking by speaks.

Congrats also go to Gabby and Alex for winning rounds at their first tournament.

JBS Debaters Gopher The Points

The Judge Barefoot Debaters had several members earn TFA points at the Grand Prairie tournament this weekend.

Colton Donica and Lucero Pina had a break out tournament.  They finished the prelims undefeated and as the number one seed.  They advanced to semi finals, finished in 3rd Place and Colton won 1st Place Best Speaker.  As a result DP earned 4 TFA points.

Also earning their first two TFA points of the season in VCX were Emilio Lozano and Rolando Velasquez who broke to Quarters and finished in 5th Place.  Mike Garcia and Reuben Howard finished in 10th Place with a 3-1 record.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman continued her streak of breaking at every TFA tournament this year.  She broke to Octos and earned an additional TFA state point.  This brings her total to six.  Queztabel Benavides also broke to Octos in VLD and earned her first TFA point of the season.

Haley Estrada and Tyffany Robles, debating in only their second tournament, finished in 2nd Place in Novice CX on a narrow 2-1 split decision.  Several of the Novice LD debaters finished with winning records this weekend.

This was a very successful weekend and it would not have been possible without the support of the parents who chaperoned this weekend.  In particular, we would like to recognize and thank Ms. Adams (Joe's mom), Ms. Howard (Reuben's mom) and Ms. Velasquez (the Twins' mom) for volunteering to help this weekend.

JBS Law Magnet's Fabulous Fives at Newman Smith

The JBS Law Magnet debate team debuted its novice debaters at the Newman Smith Debate & Speech tournament this weekend.

All the novice debaters won at least one debate round and demonstrated a contagious enthusiasm throughout the long weekend.  Ruben Garcia and Daniel Lozano became the first novice debaters to break.  They broke to Quarter Finals, winning 5th Place and each winning the first trophies for the novice squad.

Kelsey Annu-Essuman continued to display that she is one of the top junior VLD debaters on the circuit.  She went undefeated in preliminary rounds and advanced to Quarters, finishing in 5th Place.  She earned an additional 2 TFA state points, upping her total to 5.  After just three TFA tournaments, she is half way to her goal of securing TFA State qualification.

Rolando Velasquez and Emilio Lozano once again started strong with a 2-0 record, but were unable to win either of their break rounds.

The complete squad, including all 8 NLD debaters will competing at Grand Prairie next Saturday.

Finally, we would like to thank Ms. Guerrero and Ms. Rojas for helping chaperone this weekend.

Heard Through the Grapevine: Kelsey Breaks at TOC Qualifier & Wins 4th Best Speaker

Kelsey Annu Essuman became the first junior debater to ever break at a TOC tournament and the first JBS debater to win a top speaker award at a TOC tournament.  

Kelsey had a solid 4-1 prelim performance which garnered her the 6th seed in the tournament. Her Double Octo's appearance also earned her an additional TFA point.

The CX squad helped make this the most successful Law Magnet weekend at Grapevine in ten years.  All three policy teams debated in break rounds. Rolando Velasquez and Emilio Lozano finished with a 3-2 record and earned the 24th spot.  Rolando also placed 38th best speaker.  Colton Donica and Lucero Pina also finished 3-2.   Normally, a 3-2 record is enough to clear at Grapevine, but this year even a 4-1 team did not break since the tournament decided to only break to Octo's

The full squad next debates at Newman Smith where the novices will debate for the first time.