Round the 8th (of doom)

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Round 8 decisions are all now in. JR lost to Dartmouth on a 2-1 decision. KS lost to Redlands on a 2-1. It was a decent showing that will hopefully serve as a springboard for success in the future. We will be spending tonight watching the double-octafinals and tomorrow catching as many high-level debates as possible.

Thanks to everybody for their kind words and evidentiary help. Enjoy the pictures.

Clint & Crew

round 7 analysis

Matt and Kevin lost to Georgia State but overall it was a great round for the team. It was a low point win in one of the judges mind and not only did the judges say that their speeches were amazing but Matt claims he had the best speech of his life in the debate. He is excited to see it on video. It was a learning experience and even though they wont break this round they are in a good mood and preparing for next round.

JR wins

Nick & Sean have defeated Clarion on a 3-0 decision. We won our court stripping DA and that the lower courts could do their plan.
One of the judges, Heather Hall of Liberty university, began her decision by noting how great and refreshing the collegial atmosphere of the debate was and commeded both teams on their clear camraderie. I think it was a testament to the character of both teams.

Update soon when we find out out about KS.

Round the 7th- Crunch Time.

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As the "Man Scout" (the nickname has caught on) mentioned, Special K and Struth are debating Georgia State LP, a pretty good and versatile team hailing from District 6. I'm not judging this debate and have been receiving text message updates from Jason. We have reead the same affimative to overrule the Milliken decision, arguing that it would alleviate racism in schools and claiming a new advantage to deal with critical arguments.

According to Jason, Georgia State read an Agamben Critique, a CP to confront racism, a Supreme Court Legitimacy Disadvantage, and a property tax disadvantage.
Jason (who has been assigned to scout the debate) also reports that Kevin gave a "very good 2ac and we are winning ethos and logos.

Matt & Kevin need to win this debate as well as their round 8 debate (in which we automatically go negative) to achieve one of the primary team goals for this year: participating in the elimination rounds of the National Debate Tournament. All teams that finish the preliminary debates with 5 wins advance to elimination debates. Cross your fingers or pray to your respective Gods, as this would be an awesome achievement for this hard-working team and the UMW program.

**Text Message Update from Jason** Jason says that the 1ar has just been completed by Matt, and that by Matt's assessment, it was "one of the best 1ars i've ever given."
It seems that everything is clicking at the right time, but please continue to focus your positive thoughts.


The coaching staff has just completed the strike sheet for the elimination rounds, in the hope that this scenario takes place. Teams are able to select 30 judges, who they do not want to evaluate their debates, to "strike" and 60 judges to prefer. It is a very strategic process of determining judges who are ideologically in line with our arguments, are willing at vote for UMW (a relatively small school) in a "David vs. Goliath" match-up against a powerhouse from Georgia or Northwestern or Harvard, and those most likely to fairly evaluate all arguments with a high standard for quality.

Sean and Nick are having fun debating Clarion University, our "sister program" from Pennsylvania. We are quite close with the Clarion debaters and, from my experience, those debates were always a great time. This is Clarion's first appearance at the NDT, an oustanding accomplishment for the debaters Rob Noerr and Taylor Hahn, and coaches Jim Lyle and Tom Kennedy.

I will try to post again when we have a decision in for both debates.

Thanks to the well wishers.

Clint

Day 5: before round 7

They have just finished reading the debates round 7 and we are excited for our debates.

Currently Matt and Kevin are 3-3 and are looking to win the next two debates so that they are guaranteed to break. They are about to debate Georgia State LP, which should be good for us. We are on the aff.

Nick and Sean are 1-5 but have had some very close debates. They are still excited against their next debate against Clarion since we are good friends

We have done alot of work, so we should be ready and have fun

Day 4: after round 5

Round 5 has just finished.

Matt and Kevin won against James Madison on a 3-0. So they are very happy and are ready to make a good run.

Sadly, Sean and Nick lost on a 2-1 decision against a very good Fullerton team. It sucks but the littlest details can cause a team to lose. But even though they will probably not break they are excited because they have less pressure and are most likely debating a team that we are good friends with.

Anyways, we are just going over strategies and things are going well.

Jason

Day 4: Mid day

We just finished round four and sadly the results were not great. According to the team the general consensus is that Clint evidence is under highlighted, power tagged, with no warrants, and pretty much sucks in all regards. (quoted by Sean and Nick). As you can imagine they lost on a 2-1 to Michigan State AB because they went for Nano solves gender and the judges just didn't think the cards said that. But they can still break by winning out and they are not too worried.

Matt and Kevin lost on a 3-0 to Harvard against a Morrison aff. It turned out the case outweighs court stripping. Anyways, they are 2-2 and only need to win 3 out of the final four rounds.

We have just finished lunch and are getting ready for next round. Everyone wants to thank everyone for their help.

Jason