Out of seven Westview participants in the San Diego Imperial Valley Speech League Tournament 1-B (SDIVSL), four reached the final round for each of their respective events: Serena Lee (12), Sriya Indlamuri (9), Olivia Watson-Parris (10), and Pauline Kravtsova (10). Speech and Debate attended their first tournament of the season, featuring 26 schools competing at Carlsbad High School, Nov. 8.
Indlamuri placed first in Novice International Extemp, Watson-Parris and Kravtsova placed fifth and sixth, respectively, in Novice Original Advocacy, and Lee placed third in both Varsity Impromptu and Varsity Original Advocacy.
Lee’s first event, Impromptu, gives participants three prompts and two minutes to prepare a five-minute speech. Her second event, Original Advocacy, requires a seven-to-10-minute persuasive speech proposing a policy change.
According to Lee, the team had been preparing for the tournament ever since they started the season in August.
“I think what makes Speech so special this year is that we really hit the ground running,” Lee said. “As one of the co-captains, I got to push all the members to really go beyond what they expected themselves to be able to do. I think that being able to push them beyond their limits really helped them to be ready for the tournament.”
This is Lee’s first year as Speech co-captain. She said that helping her fellow members grow affected her performance as well.
“As their co-captain, I didn’t want to just be all talk no action, so I would work alongside them,” Lee said. “[I’d] be writing my speeches in my free time. When we would do impromptu practices, I was always the first one to perform and give it a shot. By watching the other members grow, I was able to grow vicariously, and that enabled me to become more confident leading up to the tournament. I wasn’t just going for myself—I was going to show them that Westview kids can win.”
Indlamuri has been participating in Public Forum debate for the past two years with both 2 Tigers Debate and the Potomac Debate Academy, but had never competed in Speech prior to this tournament. Despite that, Indlamuri competed in SDIVSL’s Novice International Extemp, where participants are given a topic and 30 minutes to prepare their speech, then seven minutes to present it. She placed in all three preliminary rounds before winning first place in finals.
“I was just really surprised,” Indlamuri said. “When they called second place and it wasn’t me, I absolutely didn’t expect it at all.”
Since Indlamuri had not competed in any Speech events prior, she said this tournament was her chance to connect with her team.
“I got to meet a lot of new people, and I think that was just the biggest thing for me,” Indlamuri said. “[The tournament] helped all of us grow closer, and gave us all a lot more motivation to do better at our next tournament in December.”
Lee has been a part of Speech and Debate for two years, and said this tournament helped her step out of her comfort zone in comparison to previous tournaments.
“At first, tournaments were a very new and scary thing to me,” Lee said. “At my first tournament, I had no idea what was going on. There’s so much complexity to Speech beyond just doing a singular event. This tournament was my opportunity to try things out and push myself to do two events in the same [round].”
Lee said the Speech team is often viewed as the underdogs at competitions, but the members are eager to prove themselves in the open division.
“Westview is kind of viewed as this underdog where we’re not dominating the finals, but seeing what we did in this tournament, where more than half of us made it to the finals, I think it’s more than possible for us to prove ourselves on a bigger stage,.” Lee said. “I’m really excited to see how much further our students can get, as now they’re traveling from the novice division to the open division varsity next tournament. Our goals are always to win, but [also] to continue to grow, and if that means getting eliminated but feeling better about your speech, then that’s still a win to me.”