Speech and Debate Students Earn State Championship

In early March, the Greenhill School Speech and Debate Team competed at the Texas Forensic Association’s State Tournament with 45 students (the largest number ever to qualify from Greenhill). Close to 200 public and private schools and 1,500 student competitors were in attendance from across the state.

Congratulations on the following team awards:

• Sixth Place Sweepstakes (This is a special accomplishment as most of our students only do one event, and most schools have students competing in multiple events.)
• Tenth Place Total Number of Qualifications to the
• State Tournament State Champion Policy Debate – Gautam Chamarthy ’25 and Rory Liu ’26
• Second Place Lincoln Douglas Debate – Sarah Koshy ’26
• Third Place World Schools Debate – Benji Beckman ’26, Carys Diamond ’27, Josephina Qiu ’26, Vijay Naidu ’26 and Marleigh Massoud ’28
• Third Place Lincoln Douglas Debate – Dylan Millimet ’26
• Second Speaker Policy Debate – Guatam Chamarthy ’25
• Fourth Speaker Policy Debate – Rory Liu ’26
• Ninth Speaker Policy Debate – Iliyan Ali ’26
• Third Speaker Lincoln Douglas Debate – Sarah Koshy ’26
• Ninth Speaker Lincoln Douglas Debate – Dylan Millimet ’26
• Seventh Speaker World Schools Debate – Sherry Zhang ’25
• Tenth Speaker World Schools Debate – Josephina Qiu ’26
• Quarter Finals Policy Debate – Maya Jagsi ’26 and Iliyan Ali ’26
• Quarters Finals – Dramatic Interpretation – Tara Alim ’26
• Quarters Finals – Lincoln Douglas Debate – Michael Ahn – ’26
• Quarter Finals – World Schools Debate – Jonaki Bose ’26, Saida Bidiwala ’26, Aditi Vikram ’26, Varun Mukund ’26 and Sherry Zhang ’26
• Octo Finals – Policy Debate – Neha Bachu ’25 and Dhiya Hemchand ’26
• Octo Finals – Policy Debate – Harris Xie ’25 and Hasan Makhani ’26
• Double Octo Finals – Policy Debate – Ella Ou Yang ’25 and Soyam Mohammed ’26
• Double Octo Finals – Policy Debate - Paylin Barnes ’27 and Mahedhar Sunkara ’27
• Triple Octo Finals – Lincoln Douglas Debate – Pranav Sreenivas ’25
• Triple Octo Finals – Lincoln Douglas Debate – Vivek Thankavel ’27
• Triple Octo Finals – Lincoln Douglas Debate – Aaron Kuang ’26

HARVARD DEBATE TOURNAMENT

In mid-February, the Greenhill School Debate Team competed in the Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament, where more than 500 schools and 6,500 students competed in several events.

The World Schools team of Saida Bidiwala ’25, Jonaki Bose ’25, Varun Mukund ’25, Aditi Vikram ’25, and Sherry Zhang ’25 competed in the inaugural online Round Robin, where they were undefeated and won the tournament. Sherry was named the top individual speaker of the Round Robin, Aditi was the 2nd, Varun was the 7th, Jonaki was the 10th, and Saida was the 12th.

In Lincoln Douglas Debate, Sarah Koshy ’26 won 3rd place and was also the third-best individual speaker. Sarah is still leading the country as the top Lincoln Douglas Debater in the country based on cumulative points over a student's five best tournaments. Dylan Millimet ’26 and Vivek Thankavel ’27 also advanced to elimination rounds in an incredibly tough field of competitors.

In Policy Debate, Neha Bachu ’25 and Dhiya Hemchand ’26 advanced to the octofinals, where Neha was the 5th best individual speaker, and Dhiya was the 7th best individual speaker.