The Exhibition Round of the 2009 George Mason University Patriot Games is currently taking place. The finalists of this year’s Round Robin are Dillon Huff of Southlake Carroll High School in Texas and Aaron Lutkowitz of Montgomery Bell Academy in Tennessee. This matchup could also be viewed as the St. Mark’s winner colliding with this year’s Yale champion.
Updates forthcoming when the winner is revealed! The regular Patriot Games tournament kicks off tomorrow and concludes on Sunday.
The GMU Round Robin has been going on for much of the day. This year’s Round Robin field consisted of the following participants:
Gabriella Barahona (Spring High School, Texas)
Dillon Huff (Southlake Carroll High School, Texas)
Jane Kessner (Walt Whitman High School, Maryland)
Nikki Luke (Blacksburg High School, Virginia)
Aaron Lutkowitz (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
Emily Martin (Boone County High School, Kentucky)
Dylan Slinger (Lakeville South High School, Minnesota)
Oscar Wang (San Marino High School, California)
When we hear the results, we will post them here to the site. While the Round Robin is not worth points in the National Points Race, it is an interesting competition that puts extempers against each other head-to-head. Check back late tonight/tomorrow to find out who emerged victorious.
This weekend will be the last major national circuit tournament of first semester will kick off at George Mason University. An astounding 140 extempers will be facing off against each other over three preliminary rounds and three outrounds to become the 2009 Patriot Games champion and potentially unlock a bid to the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee next month. For extempers aspiring to make it into that tournament this constitutes their last shot to win a bid. This tournament will also award 70 points to the winner since it is a fourth tier tournament in the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points race.
What makes the George Mason University tournament intriguing is that it will have the most national circuit winners competing against each other of any previous national circuit tournament this semester. Dillon Huff (winner of both halves of St. Mark’s), Aaron Lutkowtiz (winner of Yale and defending champion in this tournament), and Emily Martin (winner of the Wake Forest National Early Bird) will all be in the field. They will be joined by other notables such as NFL semi-finalists Oscar Wang, Carl David Goette-Luciak, and Gabriela Barahona. Jane Kessner, runner-up to Stacey Chen in last year’s George Mason Round Robin, and sixth place finisher at the MBA Round Robin is also in the field.
We don’t have the round robin field, but we do have the field for the general tournament. Find out who’s going after the jump.
This weekend the second national circuit tournament in the Extemp Central National Points Race kicks off at Yale University in New
Good luck to those competing this weekend and remember, 70 points are awarded to the winner of this prestigious event.
Thanks to a lack of coordination, it took a while to acquire the extemp postings for finals. However, here are your final six at the 2009 Wake Forest National Early Bird (from a starting field of 39). All of the below extempers will earn the first points towards the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race.
Finals go off at 9:30, draw is occurring right now.
Judges: Jeff Warren, Elizabeth Cummings, Marcus Little, Heather Ney, and Mark Perrotta
1. Rohan Bhargava (Jackson High School, Ohio)
2. Karthik Sastry (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
3. Matt Meeks (Perry High School, Ohio)
4. Emily Martin (Boone County High School, Kentucky)
5. Aaron Strickland (Jackson High School, Ohio)
6. Matthew Alonsozana (Loyola-Blakefield High School, Maryland)
After four preliminary rounds of competition, the field of 39 has been narrowed to 12. Each of the semi-final rooms will have three judges and the top three competitors in each semi-final room will advance to the final round. The competitors are listed in the order they are listed to speak in, although there will be some changes as there are many doubling in Impromptu.
We have been told that the topic area for this round is “Energy and the Environment.”
Section 1
Judges: Steve Burgin, Libby Carter, and Georgi Perrotta
1. Nathaniel Donahue (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
2. Matthew Alonsozana (Loyola-Blakefield High School, Maryland)
3. Paavan Gami (Southside High School, South Carolina)
4. Matt Meeks (Perry High School, Ohio)
5. Taylor Thompson (Carrollton High School, Ohio)
6. Rohan Bhargava (Jackson High School, Ohio)
Section Two
Judges: Caroline Butler, Brianna Doyle, and Sheela Chokshi
1. Ben Denton (Pinecrest High School, North Carolina)
2. Ross Slaughter (Walt Whitman High School, Maryland)
3. Emily Martin (Boone County High School, Kentucky)
4. Aaron Strickland (Jackson HS, Ohio)
5. Karthik Sastry (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
6. Brianna Willits (Perry High School, Ohio)
The Wake Forest National Early Bird will feature 39 competitors this year, up from 33 from the previous version. All competitors are competing for the 50 points in the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race that will be awarded to the winner.
Here are the participants, in alphabetical order, in this year’s tournament. Apologies for any misspellings or lack of location for competitors:
Matthew Alonsozana (Loyola Blakefield High School, Maryland)
Antar Azan (Myers Park High School, North Carolina)
Rohan Bhargava (Jackson High School, Ohio)
Matt DeBari (Lake Highland Preparatory, Florida)
Joseph Calder (Cary Academy, North Carolina)
Ben Denton (Pinecrest High School, North Carolina)
Tyler Dillon (Oakwood High School, Ohio)
James Dingess
Nathaniel Donahue (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
Hala Elaki
Katie Fisher (East Chapel Hill High School, North Carolina)
Paavan Gami (Southside High School, South Carolina)
John Gilliam (Dikcson County High School, Tennessee)
Rachel Hanline
Katie Hoffman (Oakwood High School, Ohio)
Ziger Huffnagie
John Holsinger (Sherando High School, Virginia)
Tre Hunt (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
Harry Lambert (Cary Academy, North Carolina)
Auden Lawrence (Pinecrest High School, North Carolina)
Aaron Lutkowitz (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
Julia Manchester (Lake Highland Preparatory, Florida)
Emily Martin (Boone County High School, Kentucky)
Matt Meeks (Perry High School, Ohio)
Lawrence Moore
Matthew Novak (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
Neil Ryan (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
Karthik Sastry (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
Anand Shah (Southside High School, South Carolina)
Dustin Shreve (Carrollton High School, Ohio)
Ross Slaughter (Walt Whitman High School, Maryland)
Rhett Spurlin (Collierville High School, Tennessee)
Will Stewart (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
Aaron Strickland (Jackson HS, Ohio)
Nick Torian (Carrollton High School, Ohio)
Taylor Thompson (Carrollton High School, Ohio)
Isabel Williams (Myers Park High School, North Carolina)
Brianna Willits (Perry High School, Ohio)
Matt Zaloba (Brentwood High School, Tennessee)
Welcome to the first installment of Editor’s Corner, which will become a regular column in The Ex Files. In this column, I will devote time to discuss trends in extemporaneous speaking, strategies, and issues that impact that extemporaneous speaking community at large. If extempers have any suggestions for future editions of Editor’s Corner, please e-mail them to me at [email protected].
The subject of this month’s column will be the “Grand Slam” of extemporaneous speaking. Chances are that there are not many people out there who know anything about a Grand Slam of extemporaneous speaking. The phrase was coined back in the 2004-2005 season, when Kevin Troy of Eagan High School in Minnesota went on the most amazing winning streak that arguably any extemporaneous speaker has ever had. Troy, who had captured the 2003 NFL United States Extemporaneous Speaking title in his sophomore year, tore through the national circuit his senior season and won four notable tournaments: the Montgomery Bell Extemporaneous Speaking Round Robin, the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions, the Catholic Forensic League national championship, and the National Forensic League International Extemp championship. The victories at the TOC and at NFL were also highly significant. In the case of the TOC, Troy successfully defended his championship and is the only person to ever win the event twice. The NFL victory was also historically significant because it was the first, and only time since, that an extemporaneous speaker has captured both the United States and International championships in their career. Shortly after Troy’s victory at NFL, the victorybriefs.net website declared that Troy had achieved a “Grand Slam” during the season.
Some sports, notably golf and tennis, have major tournaments. In the case of the PGA Tour golf circuit and the WTA and WTP tennis circuits there are four tournaments each season that are considered more important than the others. This special designation makes them “major” championships and some of the greatest who have played those sports have preserved their legacy by winning those championships. Without a major, you are seen as someone who is lacking something significant, something that makes you stand out from among the rest.
So the question becomes, does extemp have major championships? Better yet, does it have a clear four major championships to make up a Grand Slam?
In the latest Ex Files the number of points given for the CFL National 
tournament were listed wrongly. The correct point values are as follows:
1st-150 pts.
2nd-125
3rd-100
4th-75
5th-65
6th-55
Semi-finalists: 25
———————–
Also, the Extemp TOC begins tomorrow morning at 8 AM at Northwestern University. Following prelims and as soon as breaks become available, Extemp Central will try to provide you with an update on semi-finalists.
There is a smaller field at the TOC than last year, possibly because of the swine flu scare and travel difficulties for the state of Texas. There are 45 competitors in the field.
Due to numbers, the TOC has decided that it will now break to semi-finals in elimination rounds and has made the decision that there will be two rounds of semi-finals like NFL Nationals. This is a great decision as it will allow maximum rotation in these semi-finals and still preserves the number of expected elimination rounds at the tournament.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén
