On Feb. 27-28, 2026, the Horizon Honors Speech and Debate team wrapped up their final tournament of the year with immense success. The team had an amazing year overall; they all placed incredibly well throughout all the tournaments. The 2025-2026 season created many great moments, a multitude of new winners, and most of all, great memories throughout all the tournaments.

The debate team got up bright and early on Friday to head over to Chandler High School for their last tournament of the year, the 2026 AIA Arizona State Tournament. The day started off slow, but ramped up later in the afternoon with amazing performances across the board. As the day finished up for the debate team, ballots for the winners came out too. Sierra Perlmutter broke into finals for Congressional Debate, making her the first ever debate finalist for Horizon Honors. Perlmutter finished 6th in the final rankings..

The speech team also had a lot of success following the debate team the next day. To start off, two people broke into semi-finals: Marcel Degraff in Informative and Ainsley Olvey in Original Oratory. Furthermore, the team had seven people break into finals and place incredibly well. Gavin Flusche got 6th in poetry and Olvey and Abbi Prieto got 4th in Duet Acting. Prieto also placed 3rd in Prose. Matthew Greco and Syd Drowne got 2nd in Duet Acting, Ayana Bipin got 1st in Prose, and Elly Proctor got 1st in Original Spoken Word. In total, Horizon achieved 5th place as a school, making it one of the best tournaments to date.

The Horizon Sun arranged an interview with Marcel Degraff; we asked him questions on how he and his peers performed throughout the year, alongside his hopes for the future of the team.

The Horizon Sun: How did you like your first year on the team? 

Marcel Degraff: I enjoyed it a lot, I came in super shy and awkward. After a while though I opened up and started to enjoy the sport, and the people around me.

The Sun: How do you think you and your peers will continue to perform?

MD: They will go far in the sport. Everyone is doing amazing right now and they all are super talented. I’m also excited for the next wave of students to come onto the team. 

The Sun: Are there any hopes you have for the future of Speech and Debate?

MD: I hope everyone on the team will get closer together, and have more and more fun. I want everyone to win more individually and win more as a team.

Overall both teams did incredibly well in this and all the other tournaments before. The Horizon Sun congratulates the Speech and Debate team on an amazing year and wishes them luck in the years that follow.