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It was a busy week for TOC qualifying tournaments and the University of Texas Longhorn Classic provided a southern qualifying tournament for those seeking qualifications to the 2014 Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC). While George Mason University’s Patriot Games Tournament receives the most attention on the first weekend of December, the Longhorn Classic has typically been considered one of the premier tournaments to earn consideration for a bid to the Mongtomery Bell Extemp Round Robin in Nashville, Tennessee. The tournament allowed extempers to compete in United States and International Extemp and Arel Rende of Booker T. Washington High School (OK) took both championships. Rende is the defending NFL national champion in United States Extemp and his two championships at the University of Texas give him three wins at major Texas tournaments this year, as he took the U.S. Extemp title at the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational in October. Cosmo Albrecht of Robert E. Lee High School (TX) took second to Rende in both halves of the tournament.
The tournament featured two large fields, with 107 extempers in International Extemp and 102 extempers in U.S. Extemp. The tournament broke to semi-finals and all extempers who made elimination rounds earned a qualifying leg to this year’s Extemp TOC. Fifteen extempers earned their TOC qualification at the tournament, with eleven earning both qualification legs due to their performance in each extemp category. The eleven extempers who did this were Micah Cash of Booker T. Washington High School, Nicholas Curtis, David Dam, and Darren Pomida of Westwood High School (TX), Ayesha Karnik of Flower Mound High School (TX), Jonathan Kumar of Lamar Consolidated High School (TX), Lucy Tiblier and Delaine Tubbs of L.C. Anderson High School (TX), Hinda Uddin of Foster High School (TX), Marshall Webb of Saint Mary’s Hall (TX), and Thomas Yu of the Texas Academy of Math and Science (TX). The four extempers who earned their second qualifying leg at the Longhorn Classic to qualify for the 2014 Extemp TOC were Michael Lupher of L.C. Anderson High School, Kevin O’Brien of Southlake Carroll Senior High School (TX), Jan Soto of Harlingen South High School (TX), and Audrey Zhang of Flower Mound High School. Nineteen other extempers earned their first TOC qualifying leg at the tournament. The extempers that earned a qualifying leg are indicated in italics below.
Here are the results of this year’s University of Texas Longhorn Classic (Click here for tab sheet):