Dec 12, 2023 At 01:35 PM EDT
Earlier this month, College Park Academy juniors Stephan Agbor and Muna Onyilofor defeated several competitive high schools, including their season rival, in a major regional tournament in a huge win for Urban Debate leagues.
To kick off December, the Washington Urban Debate League (WUDL) buses 48 students from Washington, D.C., to the Fall Faceoff debate tournament in Mamaroneck, New York from December 1 to December 3.
This regional tournament brought together dozens of competitive teams from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., area. As a national circuit tournament, the competition was also a qualifier for the Tournament of Champions, one of the most prestigious debate competitions in the country. The top eight varsity teams all received TOC bids.
This College Park Academy team from Maryland is still green on the national circuit. Both students started debating in high school—Agbor first online as a freshman and Onyilofor as a sophomore last year.
Their coach, Dennis Martinez, is also new to the scene. The junior at the University of Maryland started coaching at the local high school in September of this year. As a WUDL alum himself, Martinez wanted to give back to young debaters.
"Debate was a really fun activity for me—it combined a lot of my interests, and it was something that I stuck with for a very long time," he said. "I didn't have much coaching resources when I was in high school, so I thought that this would be a good way to provide those to students who also wanted them."
Martinez said Agbor and Onyilofor have been "pretty consistent" on the JV team, adding that he has high expectations for them.
"I wanted to throw them in varsity," he said. "This is really their first full season of debate and JV, and it's been exciting to see how much they've grown and improved from the very first practice that we had."
The students worked hard in their previous seasons to get to this point, and it is starting to pay off.
After competing in their first tournament of the season, they were invited by the league to travel to regional competitions. They learned quickly that the national circuit is much different than the local scene.
"In local tournaments, you're dealing with people who usually get their files from the same areas [with] the same evidence," Agbor said. "Going into a different tournament, you have people who have completely different evidence you're not usually used to seeing [so] you're not immediately ready to respond to it. Being able to respond to new arguments you've never seen before quickly is a change you have to adapt to."
Onyilofor said the unknown leading up to these competitions leaves her feeling "nervous and intimidated." But once pairings were released, all of that melted away as she prepared to debate.
"When you're actually in the round, you don't really feel that way anymore because you have to focus on what you're gonna say next," she said.
Agbor and Onyilofor were coming off a good showing at WUDL's Urban Debate Dragon Invitational in late November. The pair lost in the semifinals to a team from Newark Science that went on to win the tournament.
Going into the tournament in New York, College Park was prepared for a rematch against the tough competitor from New Jersey.
"After going up against that team multiple times, there's been a rivalry between College Park and Newark Science at this point [that] really motivated us to beat them," Agbor said.
In New York, Agbor and Onyilofor lost to Newark Science teams twice in the preliminary rounds, breaking with a 4-2 record.
Onyilofor said it was "frustrating" to lose to them again, as she got caught up in thinking what they could have done better or if they would have won "if we decided to go for it in the [second negative rebuttal]."
But College Park got a shot at redemption where it really counts: the elimination rounds.
After winning in the quarterfinals and semifinals, Agbor and Onyilofor felt more prepared going into the final round. They researched their opponent's case and strategized how to respond to their arguments, using everything they'd learned from the previous rounds.
The result was what Martinez described as a "really, really close round" and a victory for College Park.
"In the final, we had to use everything we had learned, and it culminated into what was a really, really close round against [Newark] Science," Martinez said. "I think the key thing about regional tournaments is that you have really strong competitors who will challenge you to read, to research, to understand new kinds of debate arguments, and I feel like Muna and Stephan got a much wider understanding of critical, nontraditional debate arguments that they wouldn't have gotten maybe if they stayed in the local circuit."
Onyilofor was also named the fifth top individual speaker of the JV division.
The College Park Academy team took home more than a championship plaque.
With these bigger regional tournaments, debaters are exposed to new arguments, literature and debate styles.
"There are a lot more unique arguments that you never really thought you could use in debate," Agbor said. "I didn't think you could use many of these in a debate before we went to Mamaroneck. We had a team that read some poems against us, and in WUDL, I had never seen that before."
Looking ahead, this win has lit a fire in the College Park Academy team to compete at a higher level.
"Doing well in this tournament has made me think more about what the next step is like on varsity and what I can do there," Onyilofor said.
Martinez said his goals have not changed—he always aimed to push Agbor and Onyilofor up to varsity. And now, they have proven they have the potential to succeed there.
"There's always a little bit of apprehension when you're moving students up just because you don't know what to expect—and I've experienced that myself when my coach moved [me] up to varsity," he said. "But I think that there's no denying it now. And I think we'll see them in the national qualifiers at our local tournaments in January and February."
