Sixteen of the nation’s best extempers, including a good number of the top ten extempers in this year’s Extemp Central National Points Race, converged on Nashville, Tennessee as part of the twenty-first edition of the Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) Extemp Round Robin. The Round Robin features ten rounds of competition with extempers paired off into four rooms of four. The tournament is staggered so that each competitor gets two rounds against another and each round features three minute cross-examination.
When the tournament finished on Sunday evening, reigning National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) United States Extemp National Champion Jacqueline Wei of Plano West Senior High School (TX) defeated National Points Race leader Kay Rollins of the Potomac School (VA) by six ranks. Wei’s victory, her second major championship, keeps the title in Plano as her teammate, Nikhil Ramaswamy, triumphed in last year’s tournament. This is the third time that Plano West has walked away with the Round Robin title, matching Theodore Roosevelt High School (IA) and Milton Academy (MA) for the most victories at the prestigious competition.
MBA only recognizes the top six competitors at awards, with the others receiving participation trophies. Christopher Maximos of the Delbarton School (NJ), who finaled at the Yale Invitational in September, took third, while Mo Marks of Theodore Roosevelt High School (IA) was credited with her fifth National Points Race final round appearance this season by placing fourth. Nikolas Kirk of Brophy College Preparatory (AZ), who shared first place points in the National Points Race with Vivian Zhao of Plano Senior High School (TX) at the University of Texas Longhorn Classic, was fifth. Yale semi-finalist Jack Silvers of Scarsdale High School (NY) also surprised national circuit observers with a sixth place finish.
Wei will receive 150 points for her victory in the Round Robin, which was the first of three second tier tournaments during the second semester. National Points Race standings will be updated near the end of the week so extempers know where they stand heading into the Sunvitational.
Here are the results of the 2019 Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin: