Havre competes at first online speech and debate tournament

Press release

The Havre High School speech and debate team debated at the first Class A tournament of the season Friday and Saturday during the weekend of Montana's first online speech, drama and debate tournaments.

"This was quite an experience," Head Coach Tim Leeds said. "It was all new to the students, coaches and judges, and some glitches occurred but, overall, it went quite well."

The tournament had only Class A schools, and all Class A schools with speech, debate and drama teams competed at the two-day event, using an online system developed by The National Speech and Debate Association. The programs used were developed from the system the association used to host its national tournament online in June.

Whitefish hosted the opening tournament.

Havre, diminished by the confusing season with the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicting events, had a small team competing, six students in two public forum debate teams and two Lincoln-Douglas debaters.

"I was pleased with how the Havre team did," Leeds said, "They, and I, hoped to do a little better, but with learning the online format and facing the entire Class A field of competitors, we did all right."

The public forum team of Sean Borrero and Xavier Ulano, seniors at Havre High, went undefeated in the first three rounds and were seeded in the top four at that point, then lost a close match in the fourth round, just missing breaking into the semifinal round. Borrero and Ulano ended up in seventh place at the tournament.

Havre public forum debaters Dartanion Kaftan and Riley Klein, both juniors, went 1-3 at the tournament.

Lincoln-Douglas debater LillieAnn Mecklenburg went 2-0 in the first rounds, then lost close matches to end up 2-2 at the tournament.

Sophomore Paige Bertelsen went 0-4 at the Whitefish online tournament.