Pacific Forensics hosts largest invitational tournament in the nation

Every November for the past 11 years, Pacific Forensics has hosted the Pat Kennedy Round Robin and Paul Winters Invitational, a three day tournament swing to honor two of Pacific Forensics' most prolific alumni. As the tournament has continued, the excellence and prestige have grown with the tournament size. With a total of 35 universities and colleges, 118 Parliamentary debate entries across 3 divisions, 62 Lincoln Douglas debate entries across 2 divisions, and over 300 individual event entries, the 2015 Paul Winters Invitational was the largest Fall semester tournament and will likely be the largest invitational tournament in the nation this year! The Pacific Forensics team continued its successful run of the 2015-2016 season with multiple tournament championships and successful individual events and debate. 

On Friday, at the Pat Kennedy Round Robin, Pacific competitors Evan Haynes and Dallas Phillips were selected to compete in a field of 12 of the top partnerships in the nation. Teams from Concordia University Irvine, Pt. Loma Nazarene University, Rice University, St. Mary's University, University of Nevada, Reno, University of Utah and last year's national champion Southern Illinois University, Carbondale were all part of the field. Haynes and Phillips impressively made it to the Semi-final round, losing to Southern Illinois University. Meanwhile, Pacific's other debate competitors were competing at the first half of the Individual Events Swing at San Joaquin Delta College and in the Lincoln Douglas debate tournament held at Pacific. At Delta, Freshman Joslynn Howard took 5^th place in Open Prose Interpretation and Freshman George Cruz took 3^rd place in Novice Impromptu Speaking and 1^st place and Tournament Champion in Novice Dramatic Interpretation. In Lincoln Douglas debate, competitors Reed Ramsey, Jonathan Bruce, and Kayla Gerdes all broke into elimination rounds. Gerdes would finish as an Octofinalist, Ramsey as a Quarterfinalist, and Bruce would take 2^nd place overall!

On Saturday and Sunday, the team started the competitive cycle all over again and achieved even greater success. In Parliamentary debate, the partnership of Noreen Javed and Oula Miqbel, along with those of Bruce/Ramsey and Haynes/Phillips, would advance to elimination rounds each winning 4 or more preliminary debates. Javed/Miqbel would finish as Double-Octafinalists, Haynes/Phillips would finish as Quarterfinalists, and Bruce/Ramsey would finish as Quarterfinalists in an overall solid showing in Parliamentary debate.

As for Individual Events, competitors Howard, Gerdes, Bruce, and Phillips would all continue to shine! Howard would dominate her events taking 2^nd place in Open Persuasive speaking, and 1^st place and Tournament champion in BOTH Open Prose Interpretation and Open Dramatic Interpretation. Gerdes would continue Pacific's success taking 4^th place in Open Impromptu speaking and 1^st place and Tournament Champion in Open Informative Speaking. Bruce would also find success in Open Impromptu speaking finishing in 5^th place while also finishing as a Semi-finalist in Open Extemporaneous speaking. Finally, Phillips would cap off a successful Individual Event tournament for Pacific with a 3^rd place in Open Extemporaneous speaking and 1^st place and Tournament Champion in Open Impromptu Speaking.

As the final tournament for the team in the Fall semester, the Paul Winters Invitational sets Pacific up extremely well for more success in the Spring semester as they begin looking toward the national tournaments. Overall, the team finished the semester ranked 17^th in the National Parliamentary Debate Associations National Rankings, finishing in the top 5 of Debate sweepstakes at every tournament they have competed at this semester. With another top 5 finish at one of their 5 regular season tournaments in the Spring semester, Pacific Forensics could find itself ranked in the top 5 before the year ends. In terms of individual partnerships, Pacific would finish as one of four universities with partnerships ranked in the top 35 in a field of over 500 partnerships as Haynes/Phillips (ranked 18^th), Bruce/Ramsey (ranked 20^th), and Javed/Miqbel (ranked 35^th) are all nationally ranked! It would certainly appear as if Pacific Forensics is poised to continue building on its national prestige and excellence.