Barlow Debate Team Wins 4th Title in 5 Years

The debate team of Henry Knight and Sam Torchio won the Connecticut state varsity debate final against Cromwell on Friday, March 24.

The Connecticut Debate Association hosted the event, which featured 256 debaters from 30 schools. The topic centered aroun whether United States residents should be required to purchase health insurance. Knight and Torchio argued on the affirmative.

This is the second year in a row for Knight and Torchio, who were varsity state champions last year. More broadly speaking, this is the fourth state title Joel Barlow has won in five years. 

More detailed results can be view on the association's website, http://ctdebate.org/.

In addition, juniors Cooper D'Agostino & Cormac Cummiskey were also undefeated in varsity, finishing sixth overall. And in novice, freshman Hunter Lightman was the fourth place novice speaker of the year.

Emma Tower, Matt DiPalma, David Kang, Alex Cheu, B.J. Lewson, Brendan Coppinger, Nicolò Marzaro, Daanish Siddiqi and David Freeman all fought hard to get to states and turned in performances they should be proud of, Smith said.