by Daniel Kind
The Winter months of the season are often the most important and jam-packed for the entire extemp community. With at least six major national tournaments, as well as the Montgomery Bell Academy Round Robin occurring in these three months, this time is often the crux of the season. Given our brief winter hiatus in the latest tournament results, Extemp Central is now updating the community of the tournaments we missed over the winter.
Kicking off the frosty month of December was the GMU Patriot Games tournament held in Fairfax, Virginia. The tier three tournament is one of the most valuable of the years in terms of national points race points. Kay Rollins from the Potomac School in Virginia nearly picket-fenced the final round, accruing four 1s and only a single 2. Steve Asthana of Shrewsbury High School in Massachusetts was the only competitor, other than Rollins, to earn a one; Asthana got 2nd at the tournament. Mukta Dharmapurikar from Durham Academy in North Carolina finished behind Asthana in 3rd place. Blue Key Champion from American Heritage in Florida Juliette Reyes came in fourth place while Yale Champion Jimmy Gao of Ridge High School in New Jersey came in fifth. His teammate, Mason Krohn rounded out the GMU finals in 6th place. The Results Packet can be found here.
The same weekend, the University of Texas Longhorn Classic took place in Austin, Texas. Though the tournament isn’t worth as much as GMU, it’s still one of the most important of the entire season for Texas extempers. As such, the whole tournament was closed out by extempers from Texas. Bronx champion Pranav Pattatahunaduvil of Plano West High School in Texas earned overall 1st place since he got 1st in International Extemp and 2nd in US Extemp. Anurima Mummaneni from Westwood Highschool came in a very close 2nd place, getting 1st in US Extemp and 2nd in International Extemp but having a higher cumulative final rank score than Pattatahunaduvil. 3rd place finisher and Bronx runner-up Angela Wang, 4th place finisher Srikar Mamillapalli, 5th place finisher Bansal, and 6th place finisher Aditya Karthik all hailed from Plano West High School. These four competitors had the highest cumulative ranks in both International and US Extemp, as justifies their overall ranking within the tournament. All other semifinalists were determined from the same cumulative system. The Results Packet can be found here.
The first weekend after the new year, arguably one of the most prestigious, selective, and most difficult tournaments of the year: The Montgomery Bell Academy Round Robin was held in Nashville, Tennessee. Only 16 extempers across the nation were invited to the tournament and competed. The 2020 MBA Round Robin marked one of the tightest finishes from 2nd to 6th place within the tournament. Mo Marks of Theodore Roosevelt High School in Iowa, who was the runner-up at Yale, took first early in the tournament and maintained her position for all 9 remaining rounds, finishing first. Defending NCFL champion landed, Brian Zheng from Naperville North High School in Illinois fell just behind Marks to secure 2nd place at MBA. Glenbrooks finalist, Anuj Kothari, from Bellarmine Preparatory in California finished out the top three, attaining 3rd place. Kothari and Zheng were tied for 2nd, but Zheng beat out Kothari on a tiebreaker. Runner-up to the previous year’s round-robin and GMU Champion, Kay Rollins from the Potomac School in Virginia finished in 4th coming just a couple ranks behind Kothari. Longhorn Runner-up Anurima Mummaneni and fellow Texan, Pranav Pattatahunaduvil, secured 5th and 6th place positions, respectively. The margins between the two competitors were tight, as seems to be the norm for the top six this year. MBA points scoring is unique since only the top six finishers are announced by place, these competitors earned points for their respective position in the second-tier tournament. Still, all other competitors earned points as if they had semifinaled.
Further south in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the annual Sunvitational was held at the NSU University School. While Floridian Extempers typically dominate the tournament, extempers from all across the nation took most of the top spots in the 2020 tournament. MBA Champion Mo Marks from Roosevelt High in Iowa continued her first place trend by picket-fencing the final round to take the easy victory at the tournament. Minnesotan Extemper, Allison Hering from Eastview High School, took 2nd place behind Marks, while Blue Key Champion, Juliette Reyes of American Heritage in Florida, finished right behind her in 3rd. Fellow Floridian from the Dreyfoos School for the Arts, Marco Munoz, finished the final round in 4th place. Hering’s Minnesotan teammate, Veeravikash Giritharan finished just one rank behind Munoz, earning him 5th place. To round out the final round, Matthew McQuistion from the Casady School in Oklahoma finished in 6th place.
The Results Packet can be found here.
Just a week later and across the nation in equally sunny California, the James Logan MLK Invitational, a 5th tier tournament, started its rounds. Since the tournament had split International and USX sections, the same cumulation system as was used with the Longhorn Classic will be used to determine ranks within the tournament. The entire tournament was comprised of California extempers. Sienna Horvath of Valley International Preparatory took 1st place overall in the tournament since she got 2nd in International Extemp and 3rd in US Extemp. Sanjana Ranganathan from Dougherty Valley High School finished in 2nd cumulatively since they won the International Extemp section and were a quarterfinalist in the US Extemp section. Arham Habib of Monte Vista High School, who won the US Extemp category but did not compete in the International Extemp category finished in 3rd overall. Alec Boulton, the runner up in US Extemp earned 4th place cumulatively within the invitational. Meanwhile, the cumulative scores of Luccia Yacoub (Gabrielino High School) and Daniel Kim (Archbishop Mitty) got them 5th and 6th place respectively. The International Extemp Results Packet can be found here.
The US Extemp Results Packet can be found here.
In Marshall, Minnesota, an important Midwestern tournament: The Marshall Speech Spectacular held its 2020 tournament. The tournament itself was dominated by midwestern and Minnesotan extempers per usual. Woodbury High School’s Sophie Wu from Minnesota came out on top in the cumulative tournament. Glenbrooks runner-up from East Ridge High School, also in Minnesota, Sam Padmanabhan, came in a close second place. Sunvite finalist, Veeravikash Giritharan from Eastview High School in Minnesota, came in third, while MBA Champion Mo Marks from Roosevelt High School in Iowa came in 4th. Moorhead Minnesota’s Emma Pranger ended up in 5th place, and Giritharan’s teammate, as well as Sunvite runner-up Allison Hering, took the 6th place spot. The Results Packet can be found here.
Taking place the same weekend and the most recent tournament is the last in this massive winter update. The Barkley Forum, held at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, is a 4th tier tournament that typically draws Extempers from the Southeast well. That’s exactly what the tournament did this rendition of the Barkley Forum as 5 of the 6 finalists were from the southeast. MBA Invitee and GMU 3rd-place finisher Mukta Dharmapurikar from Durham Academy in North Carolina nearly picket-fenced the final round. She earned all 1s from the judges, save a single 3. Sunvite finalist Matthew McQuistion from the Casady School in Oklahoma came behind Dharmapurikar in 2nd place. Daniel Kind from Lake Highland Preparatory in Florida came just behind McQuistion in 3rd place, only one rank separated the Sunvite finalist and the Yale finalist. Marco Munoz from the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in Florida and fellow Floridian Tristan Wertanzl of Cypress Bay High School tied for 4th place, but Munoz beat out Wertanzl in a judge preference tiebreaker. To finish out the group of finalists, Ivana Ramirez from Riverside High School in South Carolina secured a 6th place spot in the final. The Results Packet can be found here.