Four of Fuqua School’s debaters show off trophies earned during one of two recent tournaments. Team members are, from left, Max Gebauer, Peyton Wiecking, Cody Howard and Roman Davis.

During the first two weekends of November, Fuqua School’s debate team participated in two tournaments.

The first tournament — at Midlothian High School — was a large event with more than 200 debaters. The school sent eight members of the team to this tournament: Max Gebauer (captain), Paavan Bonagiri, Roman Davis, Andrew Horton, Cody Howard, Christian Huggard, Christopher Kendall and Peyton Wiecking. The team was a mix of experienced and novice debaters, who  gained quite a bit of experience from top to bottom. Four of the debaters earned trophies — Max Gebauer took second place overall in Lincoln- Douglas, Roman Davis snagged fifth place in the novice division of Lincoln-Douglas, and the team of Cody Howard and Peyton Wiecking brought home the third-place trophy in novice Public Forum.

At the second tournament of the year, four Lincoln-Douglas debaters traveled to Madison County High School for the first event in the Virginia Catholic Forensic League. Although a slightly smaller tournament, the team swept the top four spots in Lincoln-Douglas with Max Gebauer taking the top prize. Paavan Bonagiri also went 3-0 while Roman Davis and Christopher Kendall both went 2-1 to close out the top four. The four debaters dominated the competition over the issue of limited qualified immunity through a mix of logic, rhetoric and teamwork. Their sweep of the Lincoln-Douglas discipline secured the team a second-place trophy in the overall Debate Sweepstakes — a combined score from the three debate disciplines: Lincoln-Douglas, Public Forum and Student Congress.