by Blake Krantz

At both Yale University’s Old Campus and Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut, seniors Alex Feit and Riley Heiman finished fourth and third, respectively, in the Yale Invitational Debate Tournament Friday, Sept. 20 to Sunday, Sept. 22.

There were 240 teams participating in the tournament, adding up to 480 high school students, from all over the United States, and one team from South Korea. The 239 teams from the United States had teams that ranged from California, Texas, Arizona, New York, and Florida to New England. South was also present.

Feit and Heiman were able to achieve the best speaking placing that this school has ever received at such a prestigious tournament, according to junior Bill Shen, one of the officers on the debate team. “The two did a great job, and they represented this school well.”

The topic of the debate was whether or not it was permissible for the United States to use unilateral military force prevent nuclear weapons proliferation around the globe.

There were a total of six rounds, and students in the debate were scored on a scale from 20 to 30, which are named speaker points. 24 points to 26 points represent an average score, 28 higher, and 29 and 30 are well above average, the latter meaning the speaker is as close to perfect as possible.

Feit and Heiman earned an average of 29.5 speaker points throughout the six rounds, according to Shen.