The Mason High School Speech & Debate Team qualified 28 students and four alternates to this year's Ohio High School Speech League's State Tournament that was held at Berea-Midpark High School on March 3-4, 2017, in the Cleveland District. Mason placed tenth overall out of 64 schools across the state in Team Sweepstakes, and several MHS students advanced to finals. The team is coached by Head Coach Melissa Donahue and Assistant Coach Bruce Harris.
"I am extremely proud of this year's accomplishments!" shared Donahue. "We had some rather large shoes to fill after graduating several talented team members last season, but our varsity students really stepped up as officers and event leaders by running a successful Speak Week camp, mentoring novice members, and providing judge training opportunities. Their achievements at States is proof that they have worked hard all season."
Finalists
Chinmay Bakshi - Fifth place in International Extemporaneous Speaking
Aditya Jog & Suraj Komatineni - Finalists in Student Congress (Top 18 out of 211 competitors)
Rishi Mehta - Fourth place in Informative Speaking
Nihar Rama - Seventh place in United State Extemporaneous Speaking
Elimination Round Results
Vidhan Bhardwaj - Quarter-finalist in United State Extemporaneous Speaking
Tristan Groenewold & Michael Hakes - Semi-finalists in Student Congress
Shravya Kamaraju - Quarter-finalist in Declamation
The team of Atneya Nair & Rahul Ramesh - Octa-finalists in Public Forum Debate
Shriya Penmetsa - Quarter-finalist in Original Oratory
Karishma Ponkshe - Double-Octafinalist in Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Aditi Rajgopal - Quarter-finalist in International Extemporaneous Speaking
Jenny Zhang - Semi-finalist in Original Oratory
The following students qualified to State:
Declamation
Prathameth Chati
Shravya Kamaraju
Anish Selar (Alternate)
Dramatic Interpretation
Hosanna An
Duo Interpretation
The team of Arnav Damadhor and Abhishek Nandra (Alternates)
Informative
Arnav Divekar
Praneeth Kanna (Alternate)
Rishi Mehta
Avi Parshonikar
International Extemporaneous
Chinmay Bakshi
Kiran Boyinepally
Seth Gerus
Aditi Rajogopal
Kash Reddy
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Vinamra Agrawa
Sanjana Are and Karishma Ponkshe
Original Oratory
Shriya Penmetsa
Jenny Zhang
Public Forum Debate
The team of Preetham Kastury and Rishav Mukherjee
The team of Atneya Nair and Rahul Ramesh
Student Congress
Tristan Groenewold
Michael Hakes
Aditya Jog
Suraj Komatineni
United States Extemp
Vidhan Bhardwaj
Ashwin Kalyanakumar
Mallika Madugula
Nihar Rama