Ridge Forensics Tops Off Winning Year With National Award

The Ridge High School Forensics team received a "School of Outstanding Distinction" award at the 2013 National Forensic League’s National Championship held in June in Birmingham, Ala.

The award topped off a winning year for the Ridge forensics team, including gaining the state forensics championship for the 12th consecutive year.

More than 3,400 speakers and debaters participated in the tournament billed as the world's largest academic competition. The event drew visitors from across the country and as far away as Singapore and Slovenia, said David Yastremski, director of the Ridge forensics program.

The award recognizes the 10 highest performing schools in combined speech and debate events at the tournament of the 1,023 schools that attended the tournament, according to Yastremski.

Highest level of recognition 

“The School of Outstanding Distinction” award is the highest level of recognition for achievement at the 2013 national tournament. It’s the first time Ridge has ever received a team award for speech and debate achievement at the national championships.” 

At the NFL National Championship, senior Nicole Castillo took fourth place honors out of 252 students debating in Congressional Debate.  

Also advancing to the final round of the top 24 were junior Michael Cervino , who took 12th place honors, and senior, Joseph Walter.

Cervino was also elected by the contestants as the Presiding Officer of the championship round. Juniors Atreya Misra and Connor Murphy advanced into the semi-finals of the event. 

In speech events, freshman Vaikunth Balaji advanced to the quarterfinal round of US Extemporaneous Speaking, placing him in the top 30 students in the division and senior Gia Farooqi advanced to the semifinal round of extemporaneous commentary and the "top 60" round of original oratory. Junior Gabriella Schnell also qualified for the event in dramatic interpretation. 

During Memorial Day weekend, the Ridge Team was awarded a Daniel Masterson Award for Excellence in Forensics as one of the top five performing teams at the National Catholic Forensic League Grand Nationals, held in Philadelphia, PA, along with an Eleanor Wright School of Excellence in Debate award. 

Michael Cervino won the national championship in Student Congress debate over the 224 competitors in the event.  The Public Forum debate team of Kevin Yang, junior, and Tim O’Shea, sophomore, advanced to the semi-final  round, placing them in the top four of the 222 teams at the tournament. 

In addition the following students advanced into the elimination rounds: seniors Giancarlo Carnevale, Nicole Castillo, Gia Farooqi,  and Arianna Montero Colbert; juniors Darius Hunt, Tracy Li, Connor Murphy, Sabina Razak, and Gabriella Schnell; and sophomores AJ D’Ambrosio, Davis George, and Saloni Singhvi. 

The Ridge High School Forensics team competes throughout the academic year at local and national speech and debate competitions. They are members of the National Forensic League, the New Jersey Forensic League, and the Newark Catholic Forensic League.