Hawken Students Earn State Championships At Speech & Debate Tournament

Students from Hawken School performed admirably at the Ohio High School Speech League Speech and Debate State Tournament earlier this month.

Individuals earned a pair of state championships in specific events and the school places third overall in the team sweepstakes.

Tim Perevozchikov of Pepper Pike and Ron Lubarsky of Highland Heights were named state champions in the Public Forum Debate competition -- winning 29 of the 30 tournament ballots.

Meanwhile, Will Mascaro of Shaker Heights was named state champion in Congressional Debate.

Twenty-three Hawken students qualified for the tournament. Other Hawken students with noted tournament results:

• Aric Floyd of Cleveland was a semi-finalist in Lincoln Douglas Debate
• the teams of Arthur Erlendsson and Adam Wolf of Pepper Pike and Marty Zhu of Pepper Pike and Noah Geller of Beachwood were honored as quarter finalists in Policy Debate
• Hawken freshman Michael Gerace of Novelty placed fifth in Impromptu Speaking.
• Megan Cerbin of Willoughby and Larry Fulton of Pepper Pike advanced, respectively, to the semi-final and final session of Congressional Debate
• the Public Forum Debate teams of Arman Raz of Chardon and Michael Meany of Solon and Sid Ahuja of Gates Mills and Zach Kirsch of Highland Heights were honored as double octofinalists and octofinalists, respectively
• Jack Weisman of Beachwood was an octofinalist in Lincoln Douglas Debate.

More than 900 students from more than 80 Ohio high schools participated in the competition. It is the culminating event in the speech and debate tournament season.