This past weekend, the Albany Academies Speech and Debate Team competed at the 44th New York City Invitational, which was held from October 17th to October 19th. The tournament is one of the most prestigious in the country, with hundreds of participants taking part in various speech and debate activities, such as public forum debate, dramatic interpretation of literature, and Lincoln-Douglas debate. This year, the Albany Academies were represented by four Lincoln-Douglas debaters at the invitational, the most it has sent thus far. Lincoln-Douglas, or LD, is a form of debate that can be distinguished from other styles in that it focuses on upholding values, such as justice, life, or morality, that can be seen as universal goods. This makes LD a more philosophically-grounded debate, and the debaters need to be knowledgeable and aware of many different philosophies and the values they promote.

David Seo, Lily Li, Leland Ben, and Devan Sing attended the tournament. For the first tournament of the year, and a national one at that, the team members did very well. Each team member consistently earned high speaker points with each debate. On a scale of 0 to 30, with 30 being the highest, David received an average of 28.3 speaker points, Lily an average of 27.4 points, Devan an average of 27.1 points, and Leland an average of 26.8 points. In addition, David won three rounds, Lily won two rounds, and Leland won one round. All team members put in a great deal of preparation and effort and received invaluable experience from the tournament. They are now looking forward to participating in future local and national tournaments starting in a few weeks.