The 2021-2022 national circuit season kicked off last weekend online as the University of Kentucky hosted its annual National Speech and Debate Season Opener. The tournament, a fifth tier National Points Race event, drew fifty-one competitors. Daniel Kind of Lake Highland Preparatory School (FL) was the tournament champion, defeating Cade Savoy of Teurlings Catholic High School (LA) by three ranks in the final round.
Kind and Savoy were the only competitors in the final round to have a cumulative score below ten among the three judges. Marc Zavarro of Western High School (FL), a semi-finalist in International Extemp at last year’s NSDA National Tournament, finished third with ten ranks, three ahead of Dana Ko of Pine Creek High School (CO), who took fourth place.
Solon High School (OH) had two competitors reach the final round, Dev Ahuja and Vikram Sundaram. They finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
Ananya Singh of Centennial High School (TX) finished seventh.
Kind, who won last season’s Barkley Forum and Harvard, will become the season’s first National Points Race leader. All competitors in the final round who placed in the top six will earn points toward this year’s standings. The first standings of the National Points Race will be posted Thursday evening.
Although the tournament is not a qualifier for the Extemp Tournament of Champions (TOC) at Northwestern University, all of the finalists earned a bid to this year’s season’s UK TOC.
Here are the results of the 2021 National Speech and Debate Season Opener Hosted by the University of Kentucky (Click here for tab sheet):