The Langley debate team took first place in the Class 6 VHSL State Debate Championship hosted at James Madison University from April 26th to the 27th. Langley students competed in 3 categories. In the Lincoln-Douglas debate, which featured individual debates, junior Vishwa Rakasi achieved first place after winning 6 of his 7 matches. Additionally, the Langley team, consisting of juniors Ahaan Shah and Sahil Gubbi, took second place in the Public Forum debate, in which teams of two debate each other (only a team from James Madison was higher than Shah and Gubbi). Sophomore Lara De took 20th place in the Public Forum debate, which has participants submit mock legislation and perform speeches over the submitted legislation.
Rakasi, Shah, and Gubbi’s performance in their debate categories gave Langley 12 points (team points are based off of individual placements of each school). Behind Langley was Oakton High School and Colgan High School, with 10 points each (Oakton got second place for having more individual second places. Other schools had 8 or fewer points.
In order to compete in the VHSL state championship, players must first compete in regionals, advance to superregionals, then qualify states at superregionals. In fact, Rakasi was victorious in all 9 matches at the regional and superregional level. Shah and Gubbi won 4 out of 5 of their matches at the regional level and 2 out of 3 at the superregional level.
“Those guys [along with Connor Chun, who did not participate in the state championship] especially—phenomenal,” said Krivak, “They’re incredibly passionate about what they do. They’re really really good, and they practice all the time. They do additional tournaments, beyond what our scheduled tournaments are.”