At last week’s Sunvitational, held online, #1 Daniel Kind of Lake Highland Preparatory (FL) continued his impressive run through the national circuit, winning his fifth major national circuit event of the year against sixty-one other competitors. As has been customary in recent months, Kind won the final round in impressive fashion by taking four of the five available first place ranks and defeating Praveen Kumar of the Hawken School (OH) by eleven.
Behind Kind and Kumar were Jack Vervis of Trinity Preparatory School (FL) and Faye Zhang of Eastview High School (MN). Ververis tied Kumar for second place but lost on a judges preference tiebreaker, with Kumar preferred by three judges to Ververis’ two. Zhang finished only one rank behind both of them.
The last two finalists were Michelle Park of Solon High School (OH), who was fifth, and Elizabeth Wong of Durham Academy (NC), who placed sixth.
Other notables who reached elimination rounds included #10 Olivia Wetzel of Whitmer High School (OH), who dropped in semi-finals, and #5 Marc Zavarro of Western High School (FL), who dropped in quarter-finals.
Defending champion #9 Mukta Dharmapurikar of Durham Academy did not participate in this year’s contest.
Kind will earn seventy points in the National Points Race for his win at the Sunvitational, as the tournament is a fourth tier event. All extempers who reached the semi-final round will earn points.
In terms of TOC qualifying bids, all extempers who made finals and semi-finals earned a bid to the Extemp TOC at Northwestern University. All finalists receive a bid to the University of Kentucky TOC in April.
Here are the results of the 2021 Sunvitational (Click here for tab sheet):