An eye-popping 281 extempers traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts last month for the Harvard Speech and Debate Tournament, which once again lived up to its billing as the largest national circuit tournament of the season. The crowded field gave way to a star-studded final round where all of the extempers are ranked in the National Points Race and four of them had won National Points Race tournaments this season.
#1 Robert Zhang, who had seen his National Points Race lead shrink going into the tournament, made a strong statement to end the regular season, winning the championship by three ranks over #4 Daphne Kalir-Starr of the College Preparatory School (CA). Zhang was the only extemper to take multiple first place ranks in the final round, enabling him to win his fourth National Points Race event of the season in five final round appearances.
Kalir-Starr maintained a strong second semester run, making her sixth National Points Race final round. It is her third top three finish of the season as well.
#2 Waleed Haider of Hendrickson High School (TX) had a chance to become the new National Points Race leader in the final round but fell short of that mark. He took one first place rank in finals but a sixth place rank left him two ranks behind Kalir-Starr for second place. That is where Haider finished at the tournament last season. It is his fifth top three finish at a National Points Race event this season.
#5 Anthony Babu of Concord-Carlisle High School (MA) reached his fourth National Points Race final round. The reigning NSDA International Extemp national champion finished fourth, a mere rank ahead of #17 Charlotte Reitman of NSU University School (FL). Like the other extempers in the final round, Reitman is also a multi-time finalist this season with Harvard marking the third time that she has reached that point of a tournament. Reitman’s fifth place finish was two ranks clear of #11 Anushka Gupta of Westwood High School (TX), who entered Harvard after a win at Stanford in United States Extemp.
The elimination rounds were littered with other ranked extempers. #6 Al Zaidi of Holy Trinity Episcopal School (FL) reached semi-finals; #8 Kate Liu of Plano West Senior High School (TX), #9 Sahana Srikanth of Mason High School (OH), and #17 Lindsey Zhao of Plano Senior High School (TX) made it to quarter-finals; and #15 Alexandre Morel of Plano West, #16 Pranav Gorty of Plano Senior, #19 Kajal Parmar of Cary Academy (NC), and #22 Ishika Kothari of Plano East were eliminated in octa-finals.
Harvard is the only regular season contest that is a second tier tournament. As a result, all of the extempers who broke into elimination rounds will earn points. Zhang will receive 150 points for his win.
Here are the results of the 2025 Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament (Click here for tab sheet):