Rambachan Wins NFL Nationals; Eastview has a Great Tournament

Akshar Rambachan won the NFL national championship in international extemporaneous speaking on Friday in Las Vegas, NV.  Greg Berman placed 5th overall in humorous.  Risa Dorken and John DeFrance made the top 30 in duo and Jake Branchaud-Linsk made the top 60 in Lincoln-Douglas debate.   Each event has well over 200 of the best competitors from around the nation.

Rambachan capped off a senior season that included winning MN State Championships in Lincoln- Douglas debate and Extemporaneous Speaking.  He also won the NCFL national championship in extemp. speaking in May (the NCFL is the other national speech and debate league).   After finishing 2nd in the first tournament of the year, Rambachan finished first in every tournament thereafter.

In the final round, Rambachan spoke on whether or not the West was headed for a new Cold War with Russia.  He drew that question, had 30 minutes to prepare, and then delivered a 7 minute speech without the use of any notes to an audience of about 1000 people.  He argued that while tensions between the West and Russia will continue, we are not headed for a new Cold War.

This is the 5th NFL national championship for the Eastview Speech team since 2004.  Ishanaa Rambachan (international extemporaneous speaking) and James Hohmann (United States extemporaneous speaking) won in 2004.  Hohmann won again in US extemp. 2005 along with Cory Stewart (dramatic interpretation).   

Berman, who won the NCFL championship in May, had an outstanding tournament, making the NFL final round as a junior.

Rambachan is coached by Todd Hering, Berman is coached by Jim Fedje, Dorken and DeFrancae are coached by Meg Krekeler, and Branchaud-Linsk is coached by Todd Hering and Jeff Walls.

Other Eastview students who competed at nationals but did not advance to the elimination rounds are Colin Desmond & Scott Matthews in Public Forum debate, Ally Huang in congressional debate, Peter Ingles in humorous, Patrick Moran in US extemp., and Barbara Marchevsky in international extemp.

This is the 11th consecutive year that Eastview has qualified students to the national speech and debate tournament.  Rambachan and Berman bring the total of Eastview student appearances  in the final round to 12: Alli Gilmore (extemp), Scott Peterson (humor), Jeff Walls (PF debate), Dane Sorensen (PF debate), Ishanaa Rambachan (extemp) , James Hohmann (2--extemp) , Cora Bryan (duo), Cory Stewart (2—duo and drama), Akshar Rambachan (extemp), and Greg Berman (humor).

In her final year as head Eastview speech coach,  Jennifer McCarty led a team that won 4 state championships and one national championship.  She will be replaced next season by co-head coaches Jim Fedje and Meg Krekeler.  Todd Hering remains the head debate coach (and one of many assistant speech coaches).