The tournament, one of three “designated” conference tournaments for the Northwest Forensics Conference, was hosted by Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., from Oct. 7 to 9. It marked the beginning of the year for many teams in the league, including HSU.
Humboldt landed three teams in the elimination round, which consisted of 16 teams. They had the strongest showing than any other of the 44 colleges participating in their type of debate. Two other Humboldt teams narrowly missed qualification for the elimination, missing by just one point each.
In the quarterfinals, the HSU team of Sammi Rippetoe and Ryan Hickey advanced to semi-finals, defeating College of Idaho and George Fox; the team of Jake Ferdman and Tony Lapiz advanced, defeating Willamette and Pacific Lutheran; and the team of Aurora Maddocks and Sean Burns advanced, defeating two Boise State teams. This gave Humboldt three of the eight teams in the semi-final round. No other college had more than one team in the semi-finals.
Maddocks and Burns advanced to the final round by beating Willamette and Mt. Hood universities and finished third overall in the tournament. Two HSU teams, Felicia Asbury and Trever McSwain and Erin Young and Roberto Mejia, barely missed the elimination rounds for the finals.
Humboldt’s lone novice team, Dana Wisseman and Craig Glasser, also advanced to the novice finals, though the round was cancelled when one team was ruled ineligible. In addition, John Michael Bowden won second place in novice impromptu speaking.
Greg Young, a professor of Communication, is faculty advisor to the team. “Overall,” he says, “it was an impressive performance for our first tournament of the year.”
The Humboldt forensics team is competing at Lower Columbia College from Nov. 3-6 and will compete at Linfield College from Nov. 11-13.
Humboldt Teams Participating at Lewis & Clark
*Aurora Maddocks (English Major) and Sean Burns (History)
*Sammi Rippetoe (Communication) and Ryan Hickey (Political Science)
*Jake Ferdman (Art) and Tony Lapiz (Kinesiology)
*Erin Young (Communcation/Journalism) and Roberto Mejia (Political Science)
*Felicia Asbury (International Studies) and Trever McSwain (Political Science)
*John Most (Communication) and John Michael Bowden (Wildlife)
*Ashley Alexander Schauer (Child Development) and Brett Mohr (Communication)
*Dana Wisseman (Anthropology) and Craig Glasser (Biology)