At the Sr. Raimonde Memorial Tournament on January 16, hosted by Regis High School, PMHS’ forensics speech team achieved its greatest victory to date, ranking 4th among more than two dozen New York City and Westchester schools. Eight Pelham students qualified as finalists, with freshmen Spencer Conrad and sophomore Daniel Teleshevsky, both of whom just joined the team this year, qualifying to compete at the New York State Championships virtually in April. Conrad competes in Congressional Debate and Teleshevsky in Extemporaneous Speaking.

Among the other finalists were senior Margot Phillips, who placed fourth in Varsity Oral Interpretation, followed by senior Sofia Tahan who placed fifth. Sophomore Jonah Sherbansky placed seventh in Declamation and freshman Mia McDermott came in sixth place for JV Oral Interpretation. In Duo Interpretation of Dramatic Literature junior Malia McLellan and senior Vikram Jallepalli were first place champions.

Conrad said, “Last weekend was a fun but difficult experience. Being the Presiding Officer in the chamber was hard to keep the participants from exceeding their time limit and to do my other duties. Other than that I had no problems with giving speeches, except it was hard to tell when speeches were close to limit.  It was fun though for me but it wasn’t easy…It was difficult but it spurred me on to try to win. It was overall a great experience and I hope to try hard to place high enough to get to nationals or at least start a tradition for me”

Both Conrad and Teleshevesky are looking forward to preparing for the New York State Championships in the Spring, and the team will be working hard in preparing for coming seasons.