LCC Speech and Debate Team wins at tournament

The Lower Columbia College Fighting Smelt Speech & Debate Team continued its record-smashing season with a historic result at the Fred Scheller Invitational online tournament, hosted by Pacific University. For the fifth consecutive tournament, LCC was the top community college, all but assuring that they will be crowned Division III conference champions when the season ends in February.

The Fighting Smelt finished third place out of 21 participating schools in overall team sweepstakes, marking the fourth time this season that LCC had placed in the top three overall. This result places LCC ahead of some of the strong, four-year university programs, including Carroll College, the University of Washington, and Harvard University.

This team's result was based on well-rounded contributions from the entire squad. Fourteen students represented LCC at this tournament, with 10 different competitors advancing to at least one final round.

Kamren Mattison was the top junior-level competitor at the tournament with impressive results across four different categories. He was the champion of junior persuasive speaking, as well as runner-up in open informative, third place in open communication analysis, and sixth place in junior impromptu speaking. Aiden Tran was the champion of both novice impromptu and novice informative speaking. He also placed fourth in junior persuasive speaking. Mara Slabu was champion of open impromptu speaking and was the only community college student to advance to elimination rounds in the open division of IPDA debate. She also placed in the final rounds of open persuasive speaking and open communication analysis.

Mercedes Musser continued the remarkably successful start to her collegiate speech and debate career, being named champion of novice extemporaneous speaking and advancing to the semifinal round of novice IPDA debate. Rayelynn Camp was runner-up in both novice prose interpretation and novice informative speaking. Covenant Adegbami was the champion of junior prose interpretation. She also finished fourth in junior impromptu speaking. Ethan Cooper was top novice in both persuasive speaking and communication analysis. He finished runner-up in the junior final of persuasive speaking, and fourth place in novice informative speaking. Damien Lucero finished third in both novice impromptu speaking and novice extemporaneous speaking. Vickey Chen finished third in novice prose interpretation and fourth in novice extemporaneous speaking. Competing at his first career tournament Eric Campbell finished third in editorial commentary. Also representing LCC at the tournament were Jared Doherty, Ameera Vandolah, Divaa Nchau, and Alex White. The squad received coaching support from program alumni Julia Mitchell, Adah Moore, Mikey Mace, Glenn John Cervantes, and Rebecca Pickner.

LCC speech and debate will be hosting the 53rd annual Michael Dugaw Smelt Classic speech and debate tournament on the LCC campus in Longview Friday. Feb. 15, through Sunday, Feb. 15. This will be the final tournament of the Northwest Forensics Conference season.