Last weekend the University of Florida hosted its thirty-eight annual Blue Key Speech and Debate Tournament in a virtual environment. National Points Race leader Daniel Kind of Lake Highland Preparatory School (FL) won a crushing victory over the field, picket fencing the final round and winning his second National Points Race title of the season by six ranks. Kind’s victory will allow him to extend his National Points Race lead as McKinley Paltzik of Phoenix Country Day School (AZ) did not attend the tournament.
Marc Zavarro of Western High School (FL) reached his second National Points Race final round of the season and was the runner-up by one rank over Chirag Choudhary of Unionville High School (PA).
The final three placings in the final round were close as Michelle Jin of the Harker School (CA) took fourth by one rank over Plano West Senior High School (TX) teammates Gabriel Bo and Kyle Letterer, who finished fifth and sixth respectively.
Even though it did not have any finalists, Bellarmine College Preparatory (CA) had six extempers represented in the semi-finals and quarter-finals, the most of any school.
All of the finalists at Blue Key will receive National Points Race points. Since the tournament had seventy-six entries, all those competitors who reached semi-finals will earn a qualifying leg to the University of Kentucky TOC in April. And all extempers who made elimination rounds will receive a qualifying leg to the Extemp TOC at Northwestern University in May.
Here are the results of the 2021 Florida Blue Key (Click here for tab sheet):
Champion: Daniel Kind (Lake Highland Preparatory School, Florida)
2nd: Marc Zavarro (Western High School, Florida)
3rd: Chirag Choudhary (Unionville High School, Pennsylvania)
4th: Michelle Jin (The Harker School, California)
5th: Gabriel Bo (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
6th: Kyle Letterer (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
Semi-Finalists
*Nicholas Blauz (Nova Senior High School, Florida)
*Isabel Mestey-Colon (Lake Highland Preparatory School, Florida)
*Francis Olakangil (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Katherine Peckham (Westwood High School, Texas)
*Joseph Thomas (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Rohit Vakkalagadda (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
Quarter-Finalists
*Sydney Carroll (Battle Ground Academy, Tennessee)
*Mukta Dharmapurikar (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
*Anirudh Mani (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Yashica Nagpal (North Broward Preparatory, Florida)
*Kush Narang (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Arjun Raman (Westwood High School, Texas)
*Anthony Reynolds (Bellarmine College Preparatory, California)
*Jude Rost (Oak Grove High School, Mississippi)
*Isaiah Sohn (Redlands High School, California)
*Madeline Tsao (Plano West Senior High School, Texas)
*Jack Ververis (Trinity Preparatory School, Florida)
*Abigail Woldgebriel (The Potomac School, Virginia)
*Olivia Yang (Westwood High School, Texas)
Extemp Central thanks the University of Florida for putting the results of the tournament online.