Posted by Mary Wimberley on 2011-09-22

 

Samford University varsity debaters Dan Bagwell and Jacob Lewis returned from their first competition of the season with the highest showing posted by a Samford team in the 13-year history of the Georgia State National Debate Tournament.

The Samford duo defeated a top 32-ranked team from Towson University on a 3-0 decision in the first elimination round to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where they lost 2-1  to a Gonzaga University team they had defeated in preliminary rounds.

Bagwell and Lewis had claimed 6 out of 7 wins in preliminary rounds to go into elimination rounds ranked fifth of the 132 teams at the tournament, held Sept. 17-19 in Atlanta, Ga.

Bagwell was named 6th best speaker among 264 individual speakers at the tournament.  This is the first time a Samford debater has been ranked among the top 10 speakers at this season-opening tournament, according to debate coach Abi Williams.

Bagwell is a senior journalism/mass communication major from Blakely, Ga. Lewis is a senior history major from Monticello, Fla.

 

 
Located in the Homewood suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks with the second highest score in the nation for its 98% Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.