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.