RIDGEFIELD — The Ridgefield High School speech and debate team marked its 23rd year of hosting the Spudder Invitational Tournament.
This year’s tournament was held via Zoom in December in order to comply with the differing COVID-19 restrictions of participating schools. Some events were held live online, and others were prerecorded for judges to review. Speech and debate team members participated in the live events from classrooms at the high school.
Debate team members continued competing against each other by playing video games during their down time. That competitive spirit paid off, with Ridgefield team members taking first, second, and third places in the Open Expository (Informational) category, as well as second and third place in Novice Humorous Interpretation, Open Impromptu, and Congressional Debate.
Ridgefield also had top-three placings at other events including the regional Heritage T-Wolf Invitational and the Prairie Falcon Invitational. In the national Mount Vernon competition, Xander Johnson made it to finals in Congressional Debate, and Abigail Brown placed second in Spontaneous Argumentation Debate and fourth in Congressional Debate.
