This year’s Glenbrooks, the first third tier event in the National Points Race, drew a large field of 103 competitors. It was the second-largest gathering of extempers this season for a National Points Race event.
Texas maintained its lock on the Glenbrooks title as #9 Kate Liu of Plano West Senior High School earned a two-rank victory over Rowan Seipp of A&M Consolidated High School (TX). Liu and Seipp took all of the first place ranks from the five judges with Liu winning three and Seipp taking two. This distanced both of them from the rest of the final round, finishing at least ten ranks ahead of everyone else.
Texas had a dominating showing generally as Alexandre Morel of Plano West, last year’s Extemp TOC winner, finished fifth and Lindsey Zhao of Plano Senior High School (TX) took sixth. The state had four additional participants in the semi-finals and quarter-finals, bested only by California, which had one finalist, three semi-finalists, and two quarter-finalists.
The biggest story for the National Points Race was that there will be a new leader when rankings come out later this week. #2 Al Zaidi of Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy (FL) notched his third National Points Race final round appearance, which was good enough to overtake #1 Robert Zhang of Elkins High School (TX), who was in the field but did not survive the brutal break to quarter-finals after preliminaries.
17 Ellie Sohn of Flintridge Preparatory School (CA) reached her first National Points Race final round of the year, placing two ranks behind Zaidi and taking fourth place.
Other notable finishes included semi-final performances by #4 Sahana Srikanth of Mason High School (OH) and #8 Daphne Kalir-Starr of the College Preparatory School (CA). #16 Kajal Parmar of Cary Academy (NC) made it to quarter-finals before being eliminated.
All of the extempers who broke at the tournament will receive National Points Race points. Liu will receive 100 points for her first National Points Race tournament title.
Here are the results of the 2024 Glenbrooks (Click here for tab sheet):