Anders and Channell at state competition in Public Forum Debate.

For the second year in a row, Columbus Academy sent a debate team to the state competition in Public Forum.

Senior Caroline Anders and sophomore Kyle Channell spent March 3 and 4 debating at Berea High School, competing in a grand total of eight rounds: four preliminaries on Friday and two on Saturday, plus a round for both times after each advance.

Based upon a coin toss, teams must argue—on the spot—for or against a resolution, which for this year was “Resolved: The United States should no longer pressure Israel toward a two-state solution.”

In its double-octa-finals round, the second “post-preliminary” round, Anders and Channel were seeded 25th and knocked out the team seeded 8th.

Anders and fellow team president, Parker Graham, placed at states last year, ranking in the top 16 teams out of the 74 in competition.

After spending two years on Academy’s debate team and leading the group with Graham, Anders is “extremely proud of how well the team has done” this season. The program’s success is impressive, especially considering this is a young team.

Anders is hopeful that students who have experienced how “rewarding debate is” will return to next year’s team once she graduates.

This was Channel’s first year on the debate team. Channel says Anders taught him a lot this season and looks forward to preparing the team for next year.