By Jasmine Lam

Staff Writer

From March 16-17, the Gabrielino High School Screamin’ Eagles participated in the National Qualifying Tournament at San Marino High School.

The students who qualified include freshman Noemi Liu, sophomores David Campos and Felicia Tang, juniors Andrew Do, Gabriel Peña and Jaycob Wahinehookae, and seniors Richelle Chow, Michael Hong, Sydney Jung, Angelina Liang, Sierra Rhodes, Leon Tran, Wendy Wong, and Wesley Yuan.

Those who qualified for events had to be amongst the top three in their event, but those who competed in the tournament were the top four speakers of their respective events. They will be taking time out of their summer break and travel to Fort Lauderdale, Florida through June 17-22 to compete.

“I’m really excited,” expressed Jung, “I’ve been to State before but I feel like Nationals is going to be a whole new experience because we compete against people all across America so it’ll be really interesting and fun to see how other states interpret their speeches.”

On March 3, the Screamin’ Eagles won their 21st league championship at California State University Long Beach for the State Qualifying Tournament and qualified 20 students to take part in the State Championships.

For many students, this tournament not only determined whether or not they would advance to State, but also it would be the last time they would be performing their speeches for the year.

They competed against 18 schools, with an estimated amount of 500 students that were also vying for a place to move forward to the State Championship.

There were three rounds that took place in the tournament and by the final round, there were 22 students that were still in the running to qualify for State. Depending on the event, there were three to five spots open.    

  The students will be competing along with six other students on the team that auto-qualified by placing either first or second place in both Fall Varsity and Spring Varsity tournaments weeks before.

  The State Championships tournament will take place at Mountain House High School on April 20 through April 22.

   Currently, Gabrielino High School is ranked sixth nationally for Speech and Debate.