Rocklin High School’s debate team went out with a bang this year, as their Public Forum team got fifth place at State on April 28-30. Senior Sweta Parija and Junior Casey Silver worked together to construct a case on the statewide topic: “The United States ought to replace the Electoral College with a direct national popular vote.”

“[The topic] was nice since it was a topic many Americans are familiar with,” says Sweta. “It also overlapped with what we learned in AP Gov and we used that knowledge in our debates.”

But having a good topic doesn’t necessarily make for an easy tournament. It’s spread over three days, with each team competing in several rounds depending on how well they do. Sweta and Casey competed in seven total, each lasting about 40 minutes. The reason they had so many rounds was because they kept progressing from the general rounds, to quarterfinals and then, semifinals.

“I didn’t expect that we would make it to semifinals, let alone quarterfinals,” says Sweta.

Casey concurs, saying, “the tournament itself was really large and diverse and intimidating… We had no idea we were going to make it far at all.”

Both teammates agreed that the tournament was long and tough. Research alone for debates is taxing and time-consuming, and adding it on top of regular schoolwork can be difficult. And that’s not even considering the coordination between partners, the anxiety of each round and the stress of public speaking.

But, after all, they had been debating together for two years now in several different tournaments and had become pretty familiar with both hard work and teamwork.

“It’s been a different experience,” Casey says, “but Sweta and I work really well together… and we’ve [competed at] five tournaments as partners since my freshman year.”

Casey and Sweta also both have backgrounds in other speech tournaments and Mock Trial, which aided their success.

The State competition represents the close of this year’s debate team―and, for seniors, the close of their time in Speech and Debate. “Even though it’s my last debate tournament, I’m happy that it went well,” says Sweta.