Barlow Debate First in State for Fifth Time in Six Years

For the fifth time in six years, Barlow has another state champion in debate with a first-place finish in varsity competition at the Connecticut Debate Association finals. Senior Nicolò Marzaro was the number one speaker at states, topping more than a hundred speakers from 28 schools public, private, and parochial schools who finished first, second, or third in fifteen regular-season events. Having more students qualify for states in varsity competition than any other school, Barlow’s seniors claimed three awards and four of the top ten slots, discussing whether or not to extend NAFTA the North American Free Trade Agreement to permit the free movement of labor.

Nicolò started the day with a perfect 30 in round one, upending Warde by a considerable margin using what the judge described as “withering cross-examination” to get concessions from his opponents. From there he blazed through the remaining preliminaries ending the day with a commanding 86 points, two ahead of the second-place finisher. His stellar analysis helped him finish this season with twelve trophies, including an invitation to the world championship tournament taking place next week in Durban, South Africa. His partner, Brendan Coppinger relied on his easy-going, familiar delivery to put him in ninth-place overall.

At the end of the three preliminary rounds, the two top scoring pairs of the tournament were seniors from Barlow, Nicolò & Brendan were the top seed with 168 points and Cooper D’Agonstino and Cormac Cummiskey just one behind them. Had D’Agostino and Cummiskey prevailed in their high-scoring first round loss against Glastonbury, they would have faced Marzaro & Coppinger again for the fourth time this season in the final round. Instead the honor went to a pair from Darien who faced Marzaro & Coppinger in the final.

The exhibition round put America’s conflicting views on their neighbors on display as Barlow opted to defend an expanded NAFTA, allowing workers to cross borders without quotas or visas. Coppinger made the claim that America’s and Mexico’s problems with the border and immigration are really economic in origin, that Mexico has a surplus of unskilled labor and that America has a surfeit of jobless college graduates. He proposed to correct this imbalance with a new policy, allowing anyone with a valid passport to travel to high-tech jobs in Ontario, Canada and Monterrey, Mexico’s rising Silicon Valley while allowing seasonal workers to cross from Mexico to help the harvest in the American southwest.

He further argued that the issue of illegal immigration and drug trafficking should be seen as separate problems. He had trouble dealing with Darien in the first cross-examination, overselling expected impacts on drug cartels, but redeemed himself in the end, getting his opponent to concede that allowing legal immigration with background checks was economically beneficial, pointing out that this was precisely the point of affirmative plan, just as time ran out.

Marzaro, however, was never better, systematically refuting every point raised by his opponents, making the claim that America would benefit from following the example of the European Union, allowing workers to travel to where they are needed, growing economies on all sides, and harnessing the efficiency of the market to determine where work was needed. He even pointed out the fiscal benefit of bringing more than six million Mexican and Canadian workers out of the shadows, allowing their work to be taxed, shoring up funding of our safety nets.

In cross-examination, he managed to reveal his opponent’s confusion about what the NAFTA actually specifies, and gave up nothing when it was his turn to be questioned. His final rebuttal was powerful appeal for economic freedom, capitalizing on a gaffe from his opponents, where they implied that Europe would be better off had the Berlin Wall never fallen.

In the end, however, the judges awarded the round to Darien by a 4-1 decision effectively splitting the 2013 title, making Darien’s Reed Morgan and Cameron Wong the champion team and Marzaro the champion speaker.

This tournament caps a remarkable three-year career for the Marzaro-Coppinger partnership, which began with an unprecedented undefeated regular season as sophomore novices. Since then, success came regularly and the pair accumulated a massive collection of 34 trophies in debate, even exceeding the total of Barlow’s previous two-time state champions, Henry Knight and Sam Torchio.

Seniors Cooper D'Agostino and Cormac Cummiskey finished the year in fine form, with one judge describing them as "the Barlow buzzsaw" for their famous ability to mechanically eviscerate their opponent's cases. Last year, the pair went undefeated at state finals, and they strove all year to build on that success taking a combined total of fourteen trophies. Having won three first-place finishes in final rounds this season, their momentum propelled them to the second-highest scoring record of the day. D'Agostino's outstanding delivery and mastery of content earned him the third-place speaker trophy, with Cormac not far behind in eighth-place.

Rounding out the sextet of dominant Barlow seniors were Caroline Ryng and captain Ben Lewson. They had a very high scoring 2-1 record, dropping very narrowly to the Darien team champions in round three. Their strong showing caps a remarkable career for the pair. Caroline was the Northeastern Regional Champion in the Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Debates. She and Lewson had a combined total of nine trophies for the season.

The rest of the varsity roster all did remarkably well, with each pair taking at least one round. Juniors Tommy Cocco and Daanish Siddiqi went 2-1, downing top pairs from Amity and Westill. Up and coming sophomore varsity debaters Hunter Lightman and Sam Aldershof got by New Canaan in round two, no small feat in a field dominated by experienced seniors. Sophomores Harrison von Dwingelo and Will Tower managed to stop Nonnewaug's best in round three.