The Homestead debate team competed at the Badgerland Debate Tournament on Saturday, Nov. 8 and 9 at James Madison Memorial High School, hosting 33 schools across Wisconsin and Illinois. Competing schools included Marquette, Madison East, Rufus King, Ronald Reagan Prep among others.    

“Going to Badgerland this year was a bittersweet feeling since it was my first and final time competing at this tournament.  It is always a challenging yet fun tournament and I love spending time with the rest of the team,” Alia Khan, senior, said.

The partnership of Zidao Wang, junior, and Tyler Gao, senior, competed in the varsity policy debate division.  They are one of the debates team’s novice partnerships.

“Our topic was whether the United States federal government should reduce its restrictions on immigration.  I was the first affirmative speaker, and the second negative speaker. Individually, me and my partner got to quarterfinals,” Wang said.

Their teammates, Isabel Klemmer, junior, and Erin Wei, junior, also competed in the tournament.  

“We also competed in policy debate.  On our debate team, there are four novice partnerships, and three varsity partnerships.  This weekend, I received 8th speaker and my partner, Isabel received 7th speaker. As a partnership, we made it to the quarterfinals of the tournament,” Wei said.

The team of the two partnerships advanced to quarterfinals and went 3-2 in their division.  

Their next competition is at Glenbrook High Schools in the Chicago area.