Lafayette’s forensics team hosted its annual OchoIE tournament, welcoming seven colleges and approximately 80 students competing in speech and debate this past weekend.
Camsey Noonan ’26, a novice speaker, placed in all three of her competing events: second place in persuasive speech, third-place award in prose interpretation and fifth place in poetry interpretation. Miles Parker ’25, the team’s president, made it to the debate quarterfinals in his first time ever competing in international public debate, a new event for the team.
“I wanted to make [the tournament] memorable,” Scott Placke, director of forensic activities, said. This included providing both breakfast and lunch for participants, offering “obnoxiously large trophies” and hosting a coloring contest paying homage to Easton’s Crayola Factory.
Ultimately, Placke hopes that Lafayette fosters a unique and healthy experience for all competitors.
“I wanted to make this a special tournament and experience for schools … that [students] remember it; that they talk about it fondly … and they want to come back again,” Placke said.
Lafayette’s own team was represented by several novices and one returning competitor. For many of the competitors, this was their first-ever speech and debate event at Lafayette.
Competitors choose their pieces to perform and train over the year. In persuasive speaking, Noonan discussed the regulation of pre-workout supplements. Her prose interpretation came from a novel she found captivating.
“And then my poetry is about hospice and nursing home worker burnout, and how that can lead to elder abuse,” Noonan said.
Parker was the only non-novice competitor at the tournament representing Lafayette. His most notable round focused on the question of whether graphic novels should be considered serious literature. Taking a negating position, Parker argued that the definition of literature excluded graphic novels.
“My opponent defined literature as a work of text in his speech,” Parker said. “So … that means any visual art, which contributes to the value of graphic novels doesn’t count [as literature].”
Parker was proud of how he performed and hoped to improve his piece in the future.
“I think I performed very well on that one,” Parker said. “I made a pretty strong argument.”
Novices Hasnat Aslam ’27, William Gutierrez ’27, Bay Malone ’27, Holly Smyth ’27, Nicholas Sorak ’25 and Selina Zhu ’27 also competed in the OchoIE Tournament. With these recent successes, the team has already begun preparing for its next tournament.
“[I’m going over] ballots with my coaches and making adjustments based on those ballots,” Noonan said. “Learning skills from [other competitors] and applying those to my own speeches is kind of the name of the game for the next two weeks.”
Natalia Ferruggia ’26, co-captain of the forensics team, is also excited to see how the team grows together throughout the season.
“I’m really excited to see what the rest of this year will bring to the team,” Ferruggia said. “We have a really good camaraderie and friendship vibe going on right now on the team which I really appreciate.”
As the team looks toward the future, enthusiasm is running high for both students and staff.
“[I’m] just really proud of the students … it’s a young group, but there’s this great energy that it’s just so much fun,” Placke said. “I think this is going to be a fun and exciting year.”
Assistant Culture Editor Natalia Ferruggia ’26 did not contribute writing or reporting.
Correction 10/20/2023: A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Holly Smyth ’26 as Smith.
Correction 10/20/2023: A previous version of this article misstated the composition of the team. Some novice competitors competed in both speech and debate, as well as only debate.
