Wake Forest senior, Jamie Carroll ( Nashville, TN) and Brad Hall ( Manhattan, KS) reached the finals of the 60th National Debate Tournament (NDT) held March 24-27 at Northwestern University. Wake Forest placed second in the elite field of 78 teams, losing on a split decision in the final round to Michigan State University. The team finished the preliminary rounds 6-2, defeating Dartmouth in round eight, earning a spot in the elimination rounds.

On their run to the finals they won consecutive 5-0 decisions over Harvard’s second team (round of 32) and Northwestern (round of sixteen). In the elite eight they defeated pre-tournament top-ranked Harvard 3-2 and second seeded Emory 4-1 in the semi-finals. Hall and Carroll improved upon their sweet sixteen 2004 and elite eight 2005 performances.

The team’s success is the second time Wake Forest has reached the National Championship round. Wake won the national title in 1997 and had four final-four finishes in 1957, 1993, 1994, and 1995.

Among the 156 debaters at Nationals Carroll was names 8th best speaker and Hall 9th after the preliminary rounds.

Two other Wake Forest teams qualified for the NDT. Senior Elizabeth Gedmark ( Louisville, KY) and Junior Chris Sedelmyer( Erie, PA) and an all first-year team Seth Gannon (Atlanta, GA) and Alex Lamballe ( Nashville, TN) both ended the competition with 4-4 records.

College Sports TV filmed during the tournament and will air the CSTV documentary later in the year.

The team was supported by a tournament research team composed of five Wake Forest assistant coaches, team debaters, and alumni volunteers. Also an "all night" research crew provided backup from the Wake campus throughout the tournament. The team was coached by Ross Smith and JP Lacy. Allan Louden is Director of Debate.

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Click for more information on the NDT
WFU News Story

Details: *Teams that cleared

1 A WWW Michigan State (Abelkop & Reid)
2 N WWW Pittsburgh (Esgrow & Weston)
3 N * WWL West Georgia (Lundeen & Munskgaard)
4 A * WWW Cal Berkeley (Burshteyn & Wickersham)
5 N * WWL Cal State-Fullerton (Magallon & Montes)
6 A * LLL Emory (Ghavi & Phillips)
7 A * WLL Harvard (Klinger & Mirchandani)
8 N * WWW Dartmouth (Brooks & Marks)

Elims

Double-Octas A 5-0 Harvard (Anders & Rebrovick)
Octas N 5-0 Northwestern (Dale & Derrick)
Q-Finals N 3-2 Harvard (Klinger & Mirchandani)
Semi-Finals N 4-1 Emory (Ghavi & Phillips)
Finals A 1-6 Michigan State (Burke & Harrigan)
8th Speaker - Carroll
9th Speaker - Hall