The upper school speech and debate team recently competed in the Liberty Tournament, one of the largest in the region. The team swept the team awards, and several students received bids to compete in the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC) competition. Freshman Mahad Amin triple broke at the tournament, becoming the 16th PHS student ever to accomplish the feat. 

Additionally, Truman Connor and Armaan Yarlagadda placed third in the Samford Tournament of Champions (TOC) policy debate competition, earning its first TOC bid. This is the first time a PHS team has received a bid for the event in 12 years!

Tournament Results:

• First Place - Overall Sweepstakes (Liberty)
• First Place - Debate Sweepstakes (Liberty)
• First Place - Individual Events Sweepstakes (Liberty) 
• First Place - Individual Sweepstakes (Liberty - Selina Tahirkheli) 

Samford Tournament of Champions (TOC)

Policy Debate - Truman Connor and Armaan Yarlagadda (third place and TOC first bid)

Liberty JV/Varsity Tournament

Tournament Champion

• Anna McDonald and Ellesmere Torrance - JV Public Forum Debate
• Maya Burton -Varsity U. S. Extemporaneous Speaking (NIETOC bid)
• Selina Tahirkheli -Varsity Oratory (NIETOC bid)

Finalists

Policy Debate

• JV: Mahad Amin and Hudson Boyle (third place)
• Varsity: Jayden Ghuman and Selina Tahirkheli (fourth place)

Public Forum Debate

• Varsity: Wazi Asjad and Phillip Park (ninth place)
• JV: Clark Castro and Anisha Priya (third place)

Lincoln Douglas Debate

• Varsity: Ingrid Li (ninth place)
• JV: Elsa Wright (third place)

Oratory

• Varsity: Mahad Amin (fifth place and NIETOC bid)

Dramatic Interpretation

• Varsity: Sophia Ramos (third place and NIETOC bid)

Informative Speaking

• Milly Bertsch (fifth place and NIETOC bid)

Program of Oral Interpretation

• Selina Tahirkheli (fourth place and NIETOC bid)

Semifinalists

U.S. Extemporaneous Speaking

• Jiya Singh (NIETOC bid)

International Extemporaneous Speaking

• Philip Park (NIETOC bid)
• Luke Ryan (NIETOC bid)

Duo Interpretation

• Mahad Amin and Hudson Boyle (NIETOC bid)

Congress

• Elan Jiang and Jimmy O'Connell

Informative Speaking

• Ingrid Li (NIETOC bid)
• Ellesmere Torrance (NIETOC bid)
• Catherine Zhao (NIETOC bid)

Program of Oral Interpretation

• Sophia Ramos (NIETOC bid)

Current NIETOC National Qualifiers

• Selina Tahirkheli - three bids (Oratory)
• Maya Burton and Phillip Park - two bids (Extemporaneous Speaking) 
• Milly Bertsch, Nala Chandramohan and Graham Henry  - two bids (Informative Speaking)
• Sophia Ramos - two bids (Dramatic Interpretation)