Over the weekend of Jan. 18, 2026, San Marin’s Speech and Debate team placed in the top eight teams, qualifying for the State Qualification Tournament. This is a significant win for San Marin as it is making history at one of the top-performing Speech and Debate schools, James Logan High School.
Going into this competition, senior Kourosh Sorkhabi wanted to perform well, but did not expect to come this far.
“I went in feeling optimistic for the most part, but we had done poorly the past two tournaments, so we didn’t have super high hopes, but we still wanted to try our best,” Sorkhabi said.
Once the team was informed they had received a 4-1 record in five rounds and qualified for the elimination rounds, morale began to rise.
“We were really excited because we had overcome that earlier decline in performance, all while going against very competent varsity debaters from other schools,” Sorkhabi said.
San Marin continued to win the first two rounds of elimination, eventually losing in the third and final round. These wins lead them to qualify for the State Qualification tournament on Feb. 28, 2026.
Speech and Debate is looking towards next year. Junior Nora Schiltgen is looking to participate in bigger tournaments and focus on building the team.
“We are always looking for more members and working on building up the skills of our novices and freshmen,” Schiltgen said.
With momentum building and the upcoming State Qualification tournament approaching, the focus will be on San Marin Speech and Debate. As the team continues to prove they can compete with some of the state’s best teams, none of them forget the weekend they made history at James Logan High School.
