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BY LAUREN SERRATO Peoria Times Staff Writer

Two rising seniors from BASIS Peoria brought home the second-place trophy at the Tournament of Champions, an international high school debate competition.

Mateen Sekandari and Pranav Saravanan became debate partners during their freshman year and have been on the team together since. After performing well at local competitions, they qualified for the apex of all debate tournaments, making them the first Arizona team to become a finalist.

“Honestly, we’re just feeling really great and really proud,” Sekandari said. “We’ve been debating for almost three years now, and it’s always been our goal to qualify for this tournament, let alone get second place. We’re proud to be able to represent Arizona and our school.”

Sekandari and Saravanan competed in the public forum division and faced debaters from the United States, Canada and China.

To be invited to the tournament, debaters were required to have performed exceptionally well in national circuit tournaments.

“This tournament, it only consists of the top-performing high school debaters from all across the world,” Sekandari said.

While the debate partners found success this year, they admitted to having their initial struggle to even come out with their first win as a team.

“At first, we actually lost every single round, all four of the rounds that we did,” Saravanan said with a laugh. “It probably was the best experience because it really showed that we weren’t the same team that lost all four rounds in our first local tournament. We were improving along with the team and finally proved to be good enough to go to the Tournament of Champions and placed second there.”

The final topic Sekandari and Saravanan debated was the International Monetary Fund and whether or not it is beneficial. As a team, the young men said they were confident about the topic, as it was one they had especially prepared for during practice.

Preparing for the tournament included late-night study sessions, countless phone calls, and research on various topics. While it was a challenge, Saravanan admitted the preparation has become one of his favorite parts about being on the team.

“I would stay up for hours at night preparing for the arguments, preparing for how we would handle arguments, and we would do practice speeches,” Saravanan said. “Honestly, despite the tournament, this was probably the best experience I had on the team because Mateen is one of the most hardworking people I know, and I don’t think anyone else on our team would stay up for hours just preparing speeches and practicing like he does.”

Looking toward the next debate season, Sekandari said the goal is to continue to do well at competitions to qualify again for the Tournament of Champions.

“Hopefully we get very far in the first tournament of the competitive season. And if we do get very far, then we’ll have a better chance of qualifying again. It’s really about going to these national circuit tournaments and going farther than we did this year, and hopefully we can go again next year and win first place,” Sekandari said.

Sekandari hopes to continue competing on a debate team in college while Saravanan plans to take the coaching route and teach high schoolers the ins and outs of being on a debate team.

For now, however, the two are looking to celebrate their recent success and take what they’ve learned into their last year of high school.

“It’s all been surreal,” Saravanan said. “This was one of the dreams that we had, and we worked so hard to prepare. Seeing it all pay off and getting second place was amazing. It was like all our hard work was finally rewarded, and we were also able to get something for our school, because it was the first time that our school was able to get a debate award. It’s all probably been the best high school experience I’ve had.”

Mateen Sekandari, left, and Pranav Saravanan competed and placed second in the public forum division at the Tournament of Champions, where they faced other high school debaters from the United States, Canada and China. (Photo

courtesy of Mateen Sekandari)