November 24, 2025
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Tallahassee State College’s Speech and Debate team delivered standout performances at the annual Sunshine State Virtual Forensics Tournament (Part 2), earning top honors across multiple categories and securing the tournament’s highest team awards.
TSC claimed first place in both the Individual Events Team Sweepstakes and the Overall Team Sweepstakes, which combines points from debate and individual events. The team advanced 18 events to the final rounds and won four of the tournament’s 11 individual event championships.
Natalie Gordon led the team with first-place finishes in Dramatic Interpretation, Poetry Interpretation, and Duo Interpretation alongside Samuel King. Olivia Shull earned the title in Prose Interpretation, adding to the team’s impressive win count.
In the Overall Team Sweepstakes, TSC outperformed a competitive group of colleges and universities. The team scored 131.5 points, followed by the University of Central Florida (108.5 points), the University of Florida (53 points), the University of West Florida (45 points), and Louisiana State University (43.5 points).
This tournament marks the team’s fourth first-place finish of the season.
“I am very pleased with the team’s results from the tournament. A lot of hard work went into pulling the wins off,” said Samuel King, a sophomore psychology major at TSC. “I’m confident about the future success of this team because we have the talent, drive, and skill to win even more competitions.”
Additional points contributing to the overall score and team success included Grace Hartman, Jack Hopkins, Jack O’Malley, Lillyana Humphreys, Tamyah Richardson, Solei Sutton, Carmen Diaz, Elsmary Hernandez, and Sophie Germanovsky.
The team will kick off its spring season in January and will host the Phi Rho Pi National Tournament in April.