Last weekend James Logan High School in Union City, California hosted its MLK Invitational, the first West Coast tournament in this year’s National Points Race. The tournament usually features a vast array of California competitors with a few out of state extempers sprinkled in and this year one of those extempers, Nikolas Kirk of Brophy College Preparatory (AZ), captured its international extemp championship. Kirk defeated Rubin Roy of Monte Vista High School (CA) by two cumulative ranks, a margin helped by Kirk’s five rank victory in the final round. Nicholas Panyanouvong of James Enochs High School (CA) placed third.
Kirk’s victory was his second at a National Points Race event this season as he was credited with a victory for being the best overall extemper at the University of Texas Longhorn Classic last month. That makes he and Kay Rollins of the Potomac School (VA) as the only extempers with more than one National Points Race victory in 2018-2019. Kirk earned forty points for winning the MLK, moving him into fifth place in the National Points Race.
In the United States Extemp portion of the tournament, Roy triumphed over teammate Arham Habib, who was a semi-finalist at the Glenbrooks in November, by one rank despite losing the final round by six ranks. Habib won the final round with two first place ranks but an errant fourth place rank put him one behind Roy when the cumulative ranks were tallied. Arshia Mehta of Dougherty Valley High School (CA) was the third place finisher.
The top six finishers in each extemp category earned National Points Race points and Roy was credited with a victory in USX, giving him his first points of the season. However, he will not receive points from the IX portion of the tournament to prevent double counting in the standings.
Here are the results of the 2019 James Logan MLK Invitational (Click here for tab sheet):
International Extemp
Champion: Nikolas Kirk (Brophy College Preparatory, Arizona)
2nd: Rubin Roy (Monte Vista High School, California)
3rd: Nicholas Panyanouvong (James Enochs High School, California)
4th: Miles Morton (Valley International Preparatory High School, California)
5th: Nikitha Kalahasti (Presentation High School, California)
6th: Matthew Nekritz (Denver East High School, Colorado)
7th: Raksha Sen (St. Francis High School, California)
Semi-Finalists
*Melissa Glover (Claremont High School, California)
*Sohum Gupta (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Daniel Kim (Archbishop Mitty High School, California)
*Gabe Lee (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Sanjana Ranganathan (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Aniruddh Suresh (Cupertino High School, California)
*Benjamin Tjandra (James Logan High School, California)
Quarter-Finalists
*Tushar Agashe (Archbishop Mitty High School, California)
*Roya Ahmadi (Monta Vista High School, California)
*Logan Currin (James Enochs High School, California)
*Faraaz Godil (Granite Bay High School, California)
*Emily Haas (Gabrielino High School, California)
*Starlee Hoc (Gabrielino High School, California)
*James Hu (Mira Loma High School, California)
*Krish Kothari (Mission San Jose High School, California)
*Divya Mehrotra (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Aindri Patra (Saratoga High School, California)
*Daniel Timor (Valley International Preparatory High School, California)
*Timothy Yue (Monte Vista High School, California)
United States Extemp
Champion: Rubin Roy (Monte Vista High School, California)
2nd: Arham Habib (Monte Vista High School, California)
3rd: Arshia Mehta (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
4th: Aalok Patwa (Archbishop Mitty High School, California)
5th: Jackson Loze (Valley International Preparatory High School, California)
6th: Raymond Fang (Monte Vista High School, California)
7th: Sharon Liu (Gabrielino High School, California)
Semi-Finalists
*Himansh Bishnoi (Archbishop Mitty High School, California)
*Alec Boulton (Valley International Preparatory High School, California)
*Matthew Dean (Mountain House High School, California)
*Bergen Foshay (James Enochs High School, California)
*Albert Hao (Aragon High School, California)
*Sienna Horvath (Valley International Preparatory High School, California)
*Reece Stromberg (Sonoma High School, California)
Quarter-Finalists
*Anish Bathwal (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Claire van Doren (Desert Vista High School, Arizona)
*Charles Gu (Monte Vista High School, California)
*Praveen Gunendran (Mira Loma High School, California)
*William Hays (Brophy College Preparatory, Arizona)
*Saad Jamal (Dougherty Valley High School, California)
*Kaylin Lebo (Gabrielino High School, California)
*Zachary Linhart (Brophy College Preparatory, Arizona)
*Kirthi Ponnuswamy (Archbishop Mitty High School, California)
*Rushil Roy (Monte Vista High School, California)
*Alex Walburg (Claremont High School, California)
*Ethan Yu (Monte Vista High School, California)
Extemp Central thanks James Logan High School for putting the results of the tournament online.