The Lincoln Southwest Debate team won the State Championship on Saturday, March 19 for the first time in the program history. Heimes received the Janet Rose Coaching Award for 2022.

Loc Nguyen and Angeletti placed first in the Public Forum Debate. Nora and Watermolen placed in second place in Public Forum, O’Brien and Coen placed in fourth place in Public Forum and Schaldl and Traudt placed in sixth place in Public Forum. Watermolen was also in sixth speaker in Public Forum.

 “For State, Anton and I put in a lot of work with the rest of the post season team to make sure that we’d actually be able to do well for national qualifiers and at State,” Loc Nguyen said. “That actually did prove dividends because we did win State and we didn’t drop a single round at State.” 

In Lincoln-Douglas, Poessnecker was a Quarterfinalist, Richard Nguyen was an Octafinalist and junior Britton Teply was fifth speaker and an Octafinalist. In Congress, sophomore Jack Anderson was fifth and junior Ellie Weeks seventh place in congress.

Coach Toni Heimes was honored as the 2022 Nebraska District Debate Coach of the Year as well.

“I am really proud of the way that they overcame obstacles,” Coach Toni Heimes said. “That they were able to prioritize things in their life, that they were able to take care of their mental health, their physical health, the physical health of others in order to persevere and come out on top. They did it the right way. They stayed ethical, worked hard and it paid off.

Prior to State the Debate team competed at District and earned runner-up honors.

In Lincoln-Douglas, juniors Britton Teply and Wren Poessnecker qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association National Tournament (NSDA). 

In Public Forum, seniors Loc Nguyen and Anton Angeletti placed first alternate, juniors Cameron Coen and Molly O’Brien placed second alternate, sophomores Clara Nora and Jack Watermolen placed fifth place and juniors Serena Schadl and Blaine Traudt placed sixth place in the Public Forum.

“I kind of knew that [coach] Heimes sent a submission for student of the year,” Loc Nguyen said. “I’m not going to lie, I kind of knew it was me when the person from Districts was reading off what Heimes wrote. I was like, ‘Oh,I can’t wait,’ because I knew it was going to be me. I was really excited to win student of the year. I felt that I put in a lot of work for the season this year and kind of deserved it.”

Loc Nguyen also was an octafinalist in Lincoln-Douglas and received the 2022 Nebraska District Student of the Year as well.

“I was overwhelmed because it’s really difficult for us to win State debate,” Heimes said. “So all of those things, wrapped up, coming out of a pandemic made it really emotional because it was likely. You always overcome obstacles to be a champion, but it seems like coming out of a pandemic, dealing with health issues on our team, all of those things made it really sweeter. Wedid it, we came out on the other side and we had done everything that we needed to do to achieve this.”

The national qualifying tournament for Congress will be Saturday, March 26 at Omaha Marian.