Here are the extempers who have been selected to participate in this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee
Kimia Dargahi – Anderson High School (Austin, Texas)
Nathaniel Donahue – Durham Academy (Durham, North Carolina)
Teagan Lende – Shanley High School (Fargo, North Dakota)
Alessandro Pauri – Flower Mound High School (Flower Mound, Texas)
Kevin Ye – Gabrielino High School (San Gabriel, California)
Jason Singh – Green Valley High School (Henderon, Nevada)
Matthew Yasuoka – Kamehameha Schools (Honolulu, Hawaii)
Susan Czaikowski – Lamar Consolidated High School (Rosenberg, Texas)
Amode Tembhekar – Leland High School (San Jose, California)
Karthik Sastry – Montgomery Bell Academy (Nashville, Tennessee)
Jared Odessky – Nova High School (Davie, Florida)
Peter Vogel – Ridge High School (Basking Ridge, New Jersey)
Catherine Chiodo – Roosevelt High School (Des Moines, Iowa)
Nabeel Zewail – San Marino High School (San Marino, California)
Forrest Richardson – Savannah R3 High School (Savannah, Missouri)
Curan Mehra – Scarsdale High School (Scarsdale, New York)
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alexandra
It’s easy to predict the results to this MBA. It is unfortunate that some strong competitors were left out because they don’t have the same opportunity to go to a lot of national tournaments. While the competitors look excellent, the ones from Texas that deserved to go and got invited would only be Alessandro Pauri. Kimia Dargahi is not extremely good. She has been in outrounds, but her personal connection to Adam Johnson got her a spot. Last place at glenbrooks, not even double finaling at marks, and poor standings at TFA…
Nikki Sachdeva has been on the radar since freshman year. 6th in Texas when competition was ACTUALLY good, quartering at nats, 5th again in FX at TFA, double finaling at Marks. She can easily beat Dargahi and Czaikowski. Czakowski only had a really good record in Texas…Nikki Sachdeva has a pretty good national record and the STRONGEST record of all the people invited from Texas. What a shame, guess it comes down to who you know. She would have been an interesting contender. Good luck to all the MBA contestants!
Tyler Fabbri
I find it a little, for lack of a better word, ridiculous, to make such generalizing and often unfair judgements about invited extempers. While sure, a couple big names aren’t joining the rest in Nashville, those that got invited deserve to at the very least be respected.
Saying that only one of the Texas kids deserved to be there is beyond frustrating. I’m not even from Texas. Kimia Dargahi is not there just because she knows Adam Johnson. Placing 5th at Glenbrooks is impressive in and of itself.
Aaron Lutkowitz got 3rd at MBA last season and didn’t even make it past Quarters at Glenbrooks or break at the previous NFL’s. I placed 4th at Glenbrooks in 2009 being a returning NFL finalist. It’s not an easy tournament, to say the least. I finished 8th at MBA. The Glenbrooks champion finished at around 12th.
Susan Czaicowski was a semi-finalist at NFL’s last year. That’s a solid feat as well. She cross-examined me in both semis and she was solid. Again, essentially saying she doesn’t deserve to be there is ridiculous.
I’m just having a hell of a time trying to figure out your thought process here, I suppose. With one breath you say the field is excellent, and the next you single out two people and say they don’t deserve to be there.
Shaan Heng-Devan
I agree with Tyler.
Alessandro Pauri
Kimia and Susan are GREAT extempers. I’ve seen them both compete and respect them as competitors as much as anyone else in the round robin. I’m honored to be in the same field as them and all the other competitors.
shahidakshaywaqasshikha
First of all, I hope you enjoy our ridiculous username. And now nobody will ever figure out which one of us is actually commenting. In any case, can someone please tell us who Matthew Yasuoka is?
PS we got your back Kimia! Haters gonna hate.