Ridhi Pothu

The BRHS debate team shows off their awards won at the Ridge National Debates.

The Bridgewater-Raritan High School debate team competed at the Ridge National Debates, a three-day tournament from December 8-10.

Offered debate categories include Parliamentary, Policy, Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum. Novice and Open categories were offered in all categories other than Parliamentary Debate.  

 Lincoln-Douglas Debate is a one-on-one competition focusing on values and philosophy, inspired by the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

Public Forum Debate involves teams of two discussing current events with an emphasis on clarity, while Policy Debate features an in-depth analysis of policy proposals by two-person teams.

Parliamentary Debate is a format where teams argue for or against a motion in a more impromptu and flexible setting.

The following Bridgewater-Raritan students competed at the tournament: 

Lincoln Douglas – Novice

• Sanvi Parikh 
• Sophia Liu 
• Arnav Dham 
• Shitika Madduri 
• Advika Prakash 
• Harshit Kondle 

Lincoln Douglas – Open 

• Suraj Shah
• Riya Shenvi 
• Eleanor Zhou 
• Matthew Yu 
• Saanvi Goel

Public Forum – Novice 

• Marko Gvozdenovic & Anik Shah 
• Paras Gawa & Rishabh Sankar 
• Rithvik krish & Om Shah 
• Esha Bande & Gayatri Krishnan 

Public Forum – Open 

• Abhay Sankay & Atharva Makode 
• Sameer Tijare & Andy Wang 
• Viraaj Marathe & Mayur Kashyap 
• Advay Pandit & Maisam Tejani 
• Sunny Chen & Athul Anand 

Parliamentary Debate 

• Meera Gharat & Andrei Cojocariu 
• Dev Patel & Amey Paranjpe 

The Bridgewater-Raritan team excelled last weekend, with Advika Prakash and Sanvi Parikh making it to the semifinals and quarterfinals, respectively. Riya Shenvi made it to the finals, the teams of Abhay Sankar and Atharva Makode and Maisam Tejani and Advay Pandit reached the finals and Dev Patel and Amey Paranjpe broke to the quarterfinals.