Irvington Students Earn Top Awards At Debate Tournament

IRVINGTON, NY — Members of Irvington High School’s Debate Club earned awards at the American Debate League Winter Classic.

The debate was held Dec. 10 at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, where the students competed against others from more than 20 area high schools.

Club advisor Jennifer Lentini said the Irvington debaters did incredibly well in their first JV level in-person competition.

Elliot Riseman and Maxwell Ma earned fifth place in the JV public forum, while Riseman also finished fourth in the overall best speaker awards for the division. Maren Piersol and Tane Kim won the JV division and finished in second and first place, respectively, for best speaker awards.

In addition, novice debaters Harlan Flamm and Mohun Desai and first-time debaters Lucy Acherakar and Max Bloom had an outstanding performance.