The Newtown High School (NHS) Debate Team reached new heights with its strong performance at the Connecticut Debate Association (CDA) tournament on Saturday, March 7.

This month's tournament, held at both Farmington High School and Stamford High School, saw attendees debate the topic, "This House would prohibit geofence warrants."

CDA is the state’s premiere high school debate league and has regularly held competitions for over thirty years, according to the group’s website.

It also states 317 debaters from 30 schools competed on March 7, making it the CDA's largest set of tournaments this year.

The Newtown team attended the Farmington tournament, where they put their quick wit and public speaking skills to the test against other students their age.

For these statewide CDA tournaments, competing teams receive the debate topic on arrival and have an hour to write a case based on a multi-page brief provided by tournament officials.

The brief contained eight written materials, from news articles and investigative pieces to op-eds and constitutional analysis.

For as daunting as competing in these tournaments might be, NHS Debate Team members once again had their hard work pay off.

NHS senior Sonya Feder and junior Atley Ammerman competed together in the Varsity Teams category, where they placed second out of 31 teams.

In the morning qualifying rounds, Feder and Ammerman went undefeated and earned the highest total speaker points amongst all varsity pairs. This qualified them to participate in the final round of the tournament, in which the top two teams debate in front of all debaters, coaches, and judges in attendance.

Feder also placed first out of 62 in the Varsity Speakers category, designated for individual varsity speakers.

This the first time in CDA recorded history, dating back to the 2008-09 school year, when a Newtown team qualified for the final round, as well as the first time a Newtown debater earned first place, according to Feder.