Akshar Rambachan capped off the best debate season in team history by winning the state championship in Lincoln-Douglas debate.  Teammate Jake Branchaud-Linsk was a semi-finalist in the same tournament, eventually losing to his teammate in semi-finals.  As a team, Eastview captured the championship in all three debate formats that it participates in. 

Rambachan, a four year letter winner in debate, ended his debate career in style by becoming the first Lincoln-Douglas state champion in school history.  After 6 preliminary rounds of competition both Rambachan and Branchaud-Linsk advanced to the quarter-finals (the top 8 of 24 debaters advance).  Rambachan then went on to win all three elimination rounds to capture the championship.  He defeated defending state champion Dan Willey from Robbinsdale Cooper in the final round on a 4-3 decision.   

Branchaud-Linsk advanced to the elimination rounds at the state Lincoln-Douglas tournament for the third straight year.  He was a semi-finalist his sophomore year, a quarter-finalist last year, and was again a semi-finalist this year.  He is the only person in school history to advance more than once to the elimination rounds.  Branchaud-Linsk also was the top speaker at the tournament, earning 175 out of 180 possible speaker points. 

Earlier in the season, Eastview debaters Barbara Marchevsky and Patrick Moran won the state championship in Classic Debate (MSHSL Festival in December). Eastview also won the championship in public forum debate, but that is not an MSHSL sanctioned event like the others. 

The debate team is coached by Todd Hering, Mike Carter, David DiPasquale, Rusty Fifield, Sean Olson, Daniella Voysey, and Jeff Walls.   

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/upload/MSHSL1743482008L-DDebateBracket.htm

For the fifth consecutive year, the Eastview Debate team won the season sweepstakes award at the Classic Debate State tournament.  Individual teams also had outstanding success.  Congratulations to classic debate champions Elle Schultz and Kalie Caetano in JV and Steven Ochs and Kristine Hiedeman in novice.  Also, congratulations to JV public forum debate co-champions Rachel Sams, Ryan Price, Shirley Liao and Ben Johnson.