The top fourteen in International and United States Extemp have been announced at the 2011 NFL National Tournament. Of these fourteen, only six will advance to Saturday and compete for the national championship. Semi-finals start at 2 p.m. CST and we should know by early this evening who our “Saturday Six” should be.
The biggest news is that Nathaniel Donahue, who has led the National Points Race for much of the year, is out of the tournament. However, Donahue will still win this year’s National Points Race because of the wide lead he opened before the tournament. This is the second year in a row that the #1 ranked extemper in the National Points Race has fallen in the quarter-final round at NFL. The biggest National Points Race competitor to fall in IX was Isabelle Taft, who entered NFL in seventh place in the points race and had secured two victories on the national circuit this season. Other known competitors to fall in the quarter-finals of IX included Pennsylvania extempers Matt Rauen and Sam Reynolds. United States Extemp, which saw most of its notable competitors advance in octofinals, saw the departure notable competitors in rounds nine and ten, such as Shikha Garg, Samantha Karas, Jason Kim, Jason Singh, and Forrest Richardson, who placed seventh in USX last year.