This past weekend, the Delbarton Forensics Program (Speech & Debate) competed at the annual Harvard National Speech & Debate Tournament. The Harvard Tournament is the largest regular season tournament in the country, with over 450 schools and nearly 5,000 in-person and online competitors in attendance. 

In Varsity Public Forum Debate, Team President Alex Calder '24 and Debate captain Zeke Ehrenberg '25 defeated a team from JR Masterman (PA) in the championship round on a 4-3 decision, winning Delbarton's FIRST Harvard championship in program history!

The debate pool of 350 competitors is the largest in the country, including several in-state rivals and most of the top 30 nationally ranked teams. Alex and Zeke's tournament win comes after a historic regular season that has seen the duo finish third place or better at seven national tournaments this year and be ranked as high as the number-one team in the country.

Romir Patel '25 and Michael Xu '26 also advanced to elimination rounds in the main tournament with an impressive 5-1 preliminary record. Additionally, because of their success throughout the season, Romir and Michael were invited to compete in a pre-tournament round-robin among other highly-ranked national teams and finished 4th overall. They earned wins over Ridge (NJ), Chapin School (NY), JR Masterman (PA), Newton South (MA), and Plano West (TX). 

Riley Ross '26 and Trevor Wyso '26 also advanced to elimination rounds with a solid 4-2 preliminary record, with Harvard being Trevor's Varsity national circuit debut.

In speech, senior Arthav Naidu '24 finished as a quarterfinalist in Original Oratory. In arguably the toughest competitor pool this year, Arthav's performance earned him his first Tournament of Champions bid of the season.

We look forward to wrapping up our phenomenal regular season later this month as we prepare for the NJSDL State Championship in March.