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Extemporaneous speaking was the largest event at this year’s National Catholic Forensic League (NCFL) Grand National Tournament, with 246 extempers arriving in Chicago, Illinois to lay claim to the season’s first national championship. The late elimination rounds featured two national finalists, four state champions, and five Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin participants, but it was Monica Coscia, a semi-finalist at this year’s Yale and Princeton tournaments, as well as a runner-up at this year’s New Jersey state tournament in United States Extemp, that took the title. Coscia thwarted Lily Nellans bid for a 2014 grand slam and a successful defense of her 2012 CFL national title (Nellans did not compete in last year’s tournament). Nellans, who competes for Des Moines Roosevelt High School (IA), tied Coscia at the end of eight rounds of competition, but lost the final round by one rank, which was the tournament tiebreaker. Coscia’s victory is the first CFL national championship for a New Jersey extemper since at least 1997 and her victory means that women have won two of the last three CFL national championships.
Josh Wartel of Lake Braddock Secondary School (VA) was the tournament’s highest placing underclassmen, coming in third and finishing only one rank behind Coscia and Nellans.
William Walker of Fullerton Joint Union High School (CA), a Glenbrooks finalist and 2014 MBA participant, was the only extemper to win two first place ranks in the final round, but two sixth place ranks weighed down his cumulative total and he finished fourth.
The topic area of the final round was U.S. economic policy.
All of the underclassmen who qualified for elimination rounds earned an automatic qualification to the 2015 Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions (TOC) at Northwestern University. Seventeen extempers, not counting those underclassmen who had previously qualified through 2014 TOC outrounds and 2014 state finals, earned a qualification to the TOC through this route and are indicated in italics below.
Here are the results of the 2014 National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament (Click here for tab sheet):