No debate about it, MJC speech team scores big win

The Modesto Junior College speech and debate team wrapped up the fall season by earning the top sweepstakes award for community colleges and beating all the four-year institutions participating at a University of California, Berkeley, tournament.

“This has been MJC’s most successful semester in recent history,” summed up head coach Ryan Guy after the win earlier this month.

The Pirates won top sweepstakes awards at every tournament they attended this fall, advanced a novice group of debaters to varsity levels and qualified two speakers to a key national tournament. Battling it out with schools from as far away as Wisconsin, MJC took wins across the board in both speech and debate events at the Berkeley competition.

In the Lincoln-Douglas debate format, all MJC students had winning records (3-1 or better). The tournament marked a massive advancement for MJC debate: The entire squad of new debaters moved up to compete in the open division, Guy said.

Rick Morris and Michael Rourick progressed to out-rounds with perfect records. Morris finished as a semifinalist, and Rourick went on to beat out Santa Rosa Junior College and win first place.

Daniel Johnson achieved third place in novice persuasive speaking. Morris took home a finalist award in dramatic interpretation. Casey Shoblom won awards in limited preparation events, earning a finalist award in novice impromptu and a second place in novice extemporaneous speaking.

The biggest wins for the team centered on a showdown between MJC’s Jon Sahlman and James Baugh. Sahlman took home third place in communication analysis, second place in extemporaneous and a second in impromptu. Baugh earned second place in persuasive speaking and first-place awards in extemporaneous, after dinner, informative and impromptu speaking.

In a second day of events, Sahlman and Baugh continued their friendly rivalry, with Baugh taking first place in after-dinner speaking and second-place awards in informative, impromptu, persuasive and extemporaneous. Sahlman got third in impromptu speaking and first place in all his other events.

In the end, Baugh narrowly beat out Sahlman to take home individual sweepstakes awards in both the limited prep and platform speech category. They also managed to qualify for two more events each at the National Individual Events Tournament this spring in Portland, Ore.

MJC’s squad now takes a break until Jan. 23, when the team will travel to Santa Clara University for the first tournament of the spring, kicking off six weekends on the road at competitions. The culmination of the spring season will be the Phi Rho Pi Tournament, scheduled for April in Ohio.

This story was originally published December 28, 2014 at 8:17 PM with the headline "No debate about it, MJC speech team scores big win."