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There’s no arguing debate team’s success
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Neighbors | Submitted.Catie Carney (left) and Lidia Mowad finished 14th in the nation at the National Forensics League National Tournament in Kansas City June 14-18. They competed in the Public Forum Debate category.
By ERIC HAMILTON
When it comes to arguing with their kids, the parents of Catie Carney and Lidia Mowad better come prepared if they expect to win.
“It usually works out pretty well for us,” quipped Mowad.
Mowad and Carney recently accomplished something no other speech and debate team from Poland Seminary High School has ever done. The duo not only qualified for the National Forensics League National Tournament in Kansas City June 14-18, they finished 14th in the country out of 356 teams in the Public Forum Debate competition.
They survived six preliminary rounds and several elimination rounds over three days of competition. They faced off with the best teams in the nation, as well as teams from China, Korea and Guam. The duo did not lose an argument until advancing to the break rounds, which were double elimination.
The team’s final loss came to a tandem from Colorado, who went on to finish second in the country.
The national champion was another Ohio team — University School in the Cleveland area.
Carney and Mowad had one month to develop their arguments for the national competition. The topic was “Current trends in American political dialogue compromise meaningful democratic deliberation.” They prepared materials for each side of the argument, as they didn’t know which they’d be asked to deliver.
“They just flip a coin and then tell you if you have to argue the pro or con side,” said Mowad. “It worked out because we had the con side almost the entire time and it’s easier to argue against something.”
In each round, the team faced off with another duo in front of judges and an audience. Each group was scored on how sound and persuasive their argument was. The judges then picked a winner to advance to the next round. Each round lasted approximately an hour.
“The Tiny Tyrants,” as friends and family call them, almost didn’t make it to the national tournament. They flew to Chicago June 12 where they were to catch a connecting flight to Kansas City. But because of stormy weather, flights were being delayed all day.
“We had been working on this case for a month and we thought we might not even get to compete,” said Mowad. “Our flight was delayed for two hours, so we just wrote our cases at the airport while we waited.”
They boarded the plane at 11:50 p.m. and finally arrived in Kansas City around 1 a.m. local time.
Seven hours later, they had to be ready for the first round of debate.
The team had originally wanted to fly out a few days earlier, but Carney needed to stay in town long enough to participate in commencement June 12.
“I graduated and two hours later I was at the airport heading to a speech tournament,” said Carney. “There wasn’t much of a break there.”
In addition to their trophies, Carney and Mowad also received $1,000 scholarships from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation, who sponsored the event.
The duo also earned the distinction of finishing as the top all-female team in the nation. All the teams placing ahead of them included at least one male.
“That’s awesome,” said Carney. “Usually the boys teams win at nationals, but for two girls to still be in after 12 rounds, it proved that we could be just as good. It was exciting.”
This was the last hooray for the duo, as Carney is headed to YSU and Mowad will be a senior at Poland.
“In our last round, when we could kind of knew that we were about to lose, we just had some fun with it,” said Mowad. “We just enjoyed the moment because it was our last debate together. We made a great team.”
There’s no debating that.