After being named the 1st Place Community College at the NOF Online National Championships, and 1st Place in limited entry at the CCCFA State Championship Tournament, IVC Speech tested their skills at the Phi Rho Pi National Championships in Norfolk, Virginia from April 5–13. Phi Rho Pi is the national forensics association for community colleges and has the honor of being one of the oldest forensics organizations in the United States. The championship tournament hosted 52 community colleges from across the country and over 600 participants. Ten students represented IVC at the tournament by competing in several events including two forms of debate, extemporaneous and impromptu speaking, programmed oral interpretation of literature, informative speaking, and readers theater. Ultimately, thirteen events made it to the final rounds which resulted in IVC Speech being awarded a double-gold sweepstakes award.
IVC Speech was awarded the Gold in debate sweepstakes, the Bronze in individual event sweepstakes, and the coveted Gold in overall sweepstakes in the Wheeler Division. This marks the 14th occasion that IVC Speech has been named Phi Rho Pi National Champions.
Debate was one of the largest events in the tournament with 137 students competing in IPDA (individual debate), and 106 students competing in NPDA (team debate). Nonetheless, IVC Speech proved that their argumentation skills were superior by taking several awards in the events. In IPDA Alex Velez received the Gold while teammates Tymen Koetsier and Sam Pirasteh took home the Bronze. In NPDA IVC Speech received double Gold with the teams of Alex Velez & Karis Kwon and Chaeryn Chung & Maddox Yarnall taking the top honors, while teammates Tymen Koetsier & Sam Pirasteh took home the Silver. The students were tasked with arguing on several topics ranging from the EU implementing stricter economic sanctions on Russia, to whether streaming services harm cultural diversity.
In individual events, IVC Speech had seven events advancing to final rounds. Team member Galia Diaz-Montoya took Silver in Programmed Oral Interpretation for her piece on food in Mexican Culture. In Impromptu Speaking Alex Velez beat out 106 competitors to receive Gold, while Tymen Koetsier received Silver, and Erica Zhang took the Bronze. With 105 students competing in Extemporaneous Speaking, IVC Speech held their own with Alex Velez winning Silver, and teammates Chaeryn Chung and Tymen Koetsier taking the Bronze.
Perhaps the biggest honor of all went to Alex Velez. The Bovero-Tabor Award is presented each year at Phi Rho Pi to the top grossing students at nationals. Out of over 600 participants at the tournament, Alex Velez received 2nd Place Overall. Co-Director of IVC Speech, Jules French stated, “To have a student win any award at nationals is an honor, but to have a student win three gold medals and a silver is exceptional and proves just how talented Alex is! To put it into perspective, the last time we achieved such a high honor was 23 years ago when IVC and Saddleback competed together as the ‘South Orange County’ team.”
After winning 194 individual awards and 17 team sweepstakes awards, they next competed at the last two tournaments of the season: the Cool-Off from April 26–27 at IVC, and the American Readers Theater Association Tournament on May 4 at Mt. Sac.