SDSU Forensics Sets Record-Breaking Pace
A look at SDSU Forensics’ fall achievements, including sweepstakes victories, national-level preparation, and student leadership in hosting major events.
Our SDSU Forensics Speech and Debate Team has been having a historic year this fall with a total of 121 awards won thus far in this 2025-2026 academic year competitive season (in just 4 tournaments)!
We began the season with an impressive start at the San Francisco Golden Gate Opener, where our team won the 5th Place Team Sweepstakes award in the University Division and 20 awards total that included 2 gold and 5 bronze individual awards. Then, in October, our team won the 2nd Place Team Sweepstakes award in the University Division at the PLNU Sunset Cliffs tournament. We won an SDSU record breaking 42 awards at this tournament, including 4 gold, 7 silver, and 13 bronze individual awards!
Our most exciting win took place at the CSUN Robert Barbera Collegiate Forensics Tournament this month of November 2025, where our SDSU team won the 1st Place Team Sweepstakes award in the University Division! This is our first 1st Place Team Sweepstakes award at a full-service tournament in many years. It was truly such an incredible feeling for our whole team, who won a total of 21 awards at this tournament, including 4 gold, 3 silver, and 4 bronze individual awards. Then, last weekend, we won back-to-back 1st Place Team Sweepstakes at the Grossmont Griffin Invitational Tournament by winning the 1st Place Team Sweepstakes award for Individual Events! We had a total of 38 awards that included the 4th Place Team Sweepstakes Overall award and 6 gold, 8 silver, and 9 bronze individual awards. We are so proud of our entire team and all of their hard work!
Over the weekend of October 10–12, 2025, our SDSU team proudly hosted The Gaske Memorial High School Invitational Tournament, welcoming more than 200 high school students, 133 judges, and 26 schools from across California and even as far as New York! Across 15 events, students showcased their talent, dedication, and passion for speech and debate. It was our honor to host this event and continue SDSU Speech & Debate’s tradition of community engagement and youth empowerment. We extend our sincere gratitude to all the judges, volunteers, and SDSU team members whose time and effort made the tournament such a success. Our SDSU speech and debate team really came together to host this tournament, sacrificing numerous hours to make this first annual high school tournament a great success! Of special recognition, the Paul Gaske Award for the Outstanding Speaker of Combined Debate and Individual Events was awarded to Viviana Blanco Flores from Bonita Vista High School. Viviana earned the most individual sweepstakes points and received a $2,000 recruitment scholarship to attend SDSU! We were so proud of the hundred-plus students who earned awards at this year’s Gaske tournament.
We have so much more to look forward to this academic year, including Fall Champs in December 2025, Spring Champs in February 2026, our International Forensics Association tournament in Athens, Greece in March, and Nationals in April. We cannot wait to update all of our alumni, donors, sponsors, and supporters as the season continues.
If you are interested in receiving our monthly Forensics newsletter, please feel free to email [email protected]. Additionally, those who wish to support our team can find the giving links at the bottom of this newsletter. This will undoubtedly continue to be a historic year for our team!
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