The Naperville North congressional debate team placed second at the state tournament held at Harper College on Saturday, Feb. 28.

According to the team’s sponsor Michelle Pitts, the top four debaters on varsity, senior Tony Zhou, senior Yasha Mostofi, junior Shruti Baxi and sophomore Johnny Gao, prepared research to debate various bills that all participating schools wrote.

“The students write the bills about categories such as economics, foreign policy and domestic policy,” Pitts said. “We research those topics ahead of time and when the kids get to the competition, they are divided into chambers and they give speeches about the topics.”

In the weeks leading up to the tournament, the team worked hard to prepare, according to co-captain Zhou.

“There are topics that you have to find evidence for, and I worked with my team diligently towards that,” Zhou. “We worked harder than we worked all year.”

Zhou placed second in his chamber and said his performance at the tournament was one of his personal bests. This tournament marked his last for his congressional debate career.

“My last tournament was really sentimental because it was four years of an activity that I committed countless time and effort towards,” Zhou said. “I definitely wanted to make the most of it.”

As a three-year member of congressional debate team, Baxi said she was thrilled to place third in her chamber.

“I was really excited because I’ve placed in other tournaments in the past, but to place at state has always been a personal goal of mine,” Baxi said.

According to Baxi, competing at the tournament in past years helped her know what to expect this year.

“My freshman year, I was terrified,” Baxi said. “But this year, I was more familiar with it. I knew what I was getting into and what I was debating.”

Last year, NNHS placed first in the state tournament.

“Last year was our peak year,” Baxi said. “Everything sort of lined up for us because we didn’t lose any seniors, but this year we lost our highest scorer because he graduated.”

According to Baxi, the team is going to focus on growing the team and recruiting younger members.

“Our goal is to take a lot of the freshmen and sophomores that we have this year and really develop their skills,” Baxi said.