Lee County High School Speech and Debate Team shines in Atlanta

ATLANTA — After several outstanding performances during the first leg of state competition two weeks ago, the Lee County High School Speech and Debate Team clinched four more top varsity state placements at the Georgia Forensic Coaches Association Varsity State Championships in Atlanta this past weekend.

“Each and every student on the team has been working toward success at this competition, and the hard work paid off,” said Coach Kyle Constable. “Although we narrowly missed finishing in the top three of the speech-event sweepstakes, the overall performance proved that Lee County undoubtedly has some of the state’s most gifted orators and debaters.”

The top placement of the weekend came in Original Oratory, where Lee County finished as the state runner-up. Sixth-semester junior Eli Lamb capped off a tremendous season — one including appearances in national circuit tournament final and semifinal rounds — with the award. This is the third time in the last five years Lee County has finished as the state runner-up in the event.

In a significant upset, two Lee County students beat out three of the state’s top-performing seniors for spots in the final round of Extemporaneous Speaking. Fourth-semester junior Yugansh Malik and second-semester sophomore Samuel Gyorfi both posted tremendous results in the preliminary rounds of competition and advanced to finals. Malik earned third place overall while Gyorfi finished just behind him in fourth place.

Both Malik and Gyorfi earned automatic bids to the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in May.

Rounding out the team’s success was second-semester sophomore Liam Lower, who, despite a 2-3 record, finished as the seventh-best Lincoln-Douglas Debate speaker in the state out of a field of more than 30 students. His preliminary-round performance gave him higher speaker points than the state runner-up and one of the state semifinalists.

Looking ahead, Malik will compete for a GHSA state championship in Boys Extemporaneous Speaking this weekend at Northside High School in Warner Robins. Malik won the Region 1-AAAAAA championship last week. This is the sixth-straight year Lee County has won its region title in Boys Extemporaneous Speaking. The school has won four out of the last five GHSA state championships in the event.

The full team will return to action in three weeks at Grovetown High School for the Georgia Southern Peach District National Qualifying Tournament. The winners and runners-up earn bids to the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament in Dallas this summer.