Category: MBA Coverage Page 2 of 9

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We are halfway through this year’s Round Robin. The last round was experimental and questions were over very obscure subject matters such as the American trucking industry, upcoming elections in Lesotho, the closing of Vermont’s Yankee Nuclear power plant, and tax reform in the Seychelles.

The topic area for this upcoming round is the Obama administration.

2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 5 Pairings

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Here are the pairings for round five. This is one of two experimental rounds at the tournament, which means that the questions extempers receive will differ from a usual tournament.

2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 4 Pairings

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The pairings for round four have been released.

The topic area for this round is U.S. economics.

2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 3 Pairings

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Draw for round three is underway as day two begins at the 2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin. Competitors will face off in six rounds today, with the last two rounds finishing at the tournament hotel tomorrow.

The topic area for this round is U.S. foreign policy.

2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 2 Pairings

On January 2, 2015

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Here are the pairings for round two of the 2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin.

The topic area for this round is American elections.

Draw for tomorrow’s third round takes place at 8:00 a.m. CST. Check back tomorrow for more pairings and happenings at the tournament.

2015 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 1 Pairings

On January 2, 2015

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Pairings have been released for the first round of this year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin.

For those unfamiliar with the tournament, the sixteen competitors are divided into four sections of four for ten rounds with each competitor hitting the other twice. The tournament results are determined by a competitor’s scores across all ten rounds, all of which are adjudicated by three judge panels. The top five competitors compete in an Exhibition Round on Sunday, which serves as its own stand alone round, and the eleven extempers who did not make the Exhibition Round serve as the judges. In case of ties, a panel composed of former Round Robin competitors breaks it. If two extempers tie for first place, coaches have the option of letting the Exhibition Round decide the tournament, with the former Round Robin competitors ballots serving as the tiebreaker. In that situation coaches will be able to strike one of the judges.

The topic area for round one is international relations and organizations.

Competitors National Points Race ranking is indicated in italics next to their name.

2015 Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin: Sweet Sixteen Preview (Part 2)

On December 31, 2014

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Here is day two of our participant capsules for this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee. Check back tomorrow for a poll, where you can cast your vote for who you think will win this year’s tournament!

2015 Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin: Sweet Sixteen Preview (Part 1)

On December 30, 2014

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The Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin will take place this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. The tournament invites the best extemporaneous speakers in the country and is one of the four major extemporaneous speaking tournaments. The winner will receive 150 points in the National Points Race since MBA is one of two second tier events on the national circuit calendar.

There will be a different winner of this year’s Round Robin. Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) won the last three Round Robins and her graduation last spring ensures that this year will feature a new tournament champion. Last year, Nellans survived the sternest test to her winning streak, as she came from behind on the final day to catch Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA) and proceeded to defeat him in the tournament’s Exhibition Round. Wartel returns to this year’s competition seeking the title that he came so close to winning last year.

This year’s MBA field features six returning competitors, including one Exhibition Round participant (Wartel), the winners of eight 2014-2015 Extemp TOC qualifying tournaments, five state champions, and eight of the top ten competitors in the National Points Race. Three extempers represent schools from Texas and Florida, giving both states the most representatives in this year’s competition. There is only one female extemper in the field as well – Phoebe Lin of Plano West Senior High School (TX).

Glenbrooks champion Jack Glaser of George Washington High School (CO), Yale and New York City Invitational winner Jasper Primack of Newton South High School (MA), and two-time California United States Extemp champion and NSDA finalist Brian Yu of Monte Vista High School (CA) all declined bids to this year’s tournament due to prior commitments.

Today and tomorrow, Extemp Central will provide brief capsules for each of the sixteen extempers invited to participate in this year’s MBA Round Robin. The capsules have been arranged in alphabetical order.

2015 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin Field

On December 11, 2014

In MBA Coverage, National Circuit News

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Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) Extemp Round Robin tournament director Adam Johnson has just released the 2015 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin field. The tournament will take place from January 2-4 in Nashville, Tennessee. Congratulations to those extempers invited to participate in one of the circuit’s premier tournaments.

*Brian Anderson (LaRue County High School, Kentucky)
*Vaikunth Balaji (Ridge High School, New Jersey)
*Micah Cash (Booker T. Washington High School, Oklahoma)
*Rohan Dhoopar (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Justin Graham (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Jad Hamdan (Jackson High School, Ohio)
*Davis Larkin (The Parish Episcopal School, Texas)
*Yijia Liang (Upper Arlington High School, Ohio)
*Phoebe Lin (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Vishal Narayanaswamy (James Madison Memorial High School, Wisconsin)
*Nathaniel Saffran (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Eitan Sapiro-Gheiler (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
*Marshall Sloane (Milton Academy, Massachusetts)
*Josh Wartel (Lake Braddock Secondary School, Virginia)
*Marshall Webb (Saint Mary’s Hall, Texas)
*Noah Wexler (Nova Senior High School, Florida)

2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: Nellans Edges Out Wartel to Claim Third Consecutive Championship; Ties Major Championship Record

In MBA Coverage, National Circuit Results

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This year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin, the season’s first major extemp tournament, produced the only tie in tournament history as two-time defending champion Lily Nellans of Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA) and Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA) had the same forty-five rank composite at the end of ten rounds of competition. The pair settled the tie in the tournament’s Exhibition Round with the ranks of the seven MBA tournament alumni judges determining the outcome. Nellans and Wartel each had a “strike” to eliminate one judge’s decision prior to the round and in a 4-1 decision, Nellans emerged victorious and claims her third consecutive Round Robin title. The victory constitutes Nellans sixth career major championship, which ties her with Kevin Troy for most career major championships. Troy’s record has stood unchallenged for the better part of the last eight years, but Nellans will have an opportunity to break it at this year’s Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC), Catholic Forensic League (CFL) Grand National Tournament, and the National Forensic League (NFL) National Tournament. Nellans was also the winner of the tournament’s Exhibition Round.

Miles Saffran of Trinity Preparatory School (FL) also came very close to making the tournament a three-way tie, as he finished two ranks behind Nellans and Wartel. Saffran finished fourth at last year’s Round Robin.

It took a cumulative score of sixty-four ranks to make the Exhibition Round and the top five finishers of the tournament were at least thirteen ranks above the next out finisher. This is one of the widest margins between the top five and the rest of the field in MBA history.

Here are the results of the 2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin:

2014 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: Exhibition Round Participants!

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The Exhibition Round participants have recently been announced for this year’s Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin. These are the top five placing competitors of the tournament, but they will not know their final placements until the awards ceremony, which will take place at 4:00. The Exhibition Round will be judged by the eleven competitors that did not make the Round Robin, with a tiebreaker panel of MBA alumni also judging the round. The alumni panel will be composed of Jason Warren, Tyler Fabbri, Logan Scisco, David Tucker, Peter Vogel, Hamilton Millwee, and Aaron Lutkowitz. The Exhibition Round does not count into the tournament final standings, although the winner of the Exhibition Round will receive a separate award.

For the first time in MBA history there is a tie for first place. Tournament director Adam Johnson has decided that the alumni panel will break this tie based on the Exhibition Round. This means that of the two competitors that tied for the first the one with the better Exhibition Round performance will win the tournament. This is very interesting when one considers that the wacky graph has shown the same competitor in first place for the duration of the tournament.

The topic area for the Exhibition Round is today’s headlines.

Here are the participants in this year’s Exhibition Round (listed in speaking order):

*Arel Rende (Booker T. Washington High School, Oklahoma)
*Lily Nellans (Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa)
*Miles Saffran (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Josh Wartel (Lake Braddock Secondary School, Virginia)
*Chase Harrison (Millburn High School, New Jersey)

For those that want to see how the wacky graph turned out at the tournament’s conclusion:

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 10 Pairings

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Draw for the final round of this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin is underway. This is the last opportunity for extempers to make a move in the final standings, as this round will constitute the last three of an extemper’s thirty ranks for the tournament. In the past, extempers have managed to move into first place in round ten and have spoken their way into (and out of) the tournament’s Exhibition Round.

As stated this morning, Adam Johnson will announce the Exhibition Round participants at 1:35 p.m. CST and we will be as prompt as possible getting the names of those participants to you.

The topic area for this round is global hot spots.

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 9 Pairings

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The third and final day of this year’s Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin has kicked off. The competition will be taking place today in the Nashville Airport Marriott and two rounds of competition remain. Once those rounds are over, competitors will enjoy a forty-five minute lunch break and the participants in the Exhibition Round will be announced by tournament director Adam Johnson at 1:35 p.m. CST.

Last night’s experimental round saw extempers presented with a list of names of notable people that passed away in the last year, which included Tom Foley, Helen Thomas, and others. Extempers had to discuss who this figure would “haunt” if they returned to Earth and what they would do.

The topic area for this round is every extemper’s favorite: domestic social.

2014 MBA Extemp Round Robin Live Coverage: Round 8 Pairings

On January 4, 2014