Students from across the country filled the cafeteria and classrooms Oct. 28 to 30 as the Speech and Debate team hosted its second annual tournament, the Walt Whitman PrepMatters Beltway Invitational.

About 200 students and judges participated in the weekend’s events from about 15 states, including D.C. and states ranging from New Orleans to Washington State. Whitman families provided housing for out-of-town participants to reduce the cost of travel for the students. The team plans to ideally host a small tournament in the spring, and a larger one in the fall, debate booster club vice president Mandy Katz said.

“It’s a great way opportunity for our students to get to know debaters and ‘speechies’ from around the country,” Katz said.

PrepMatters, a local test prep company, was the main sponsor of this year’s tournament. Media outlets such as “Newsweek” and “The Economist” also helped sponsor the tournament, and restaurants like Chipotle and Cava Mezze Grill provided free or discounted food for participants.

The team expects to make around a few thousand dollars from the tournament, Katz said.

The tournament featured three debate events: Public Forum debate, Lincoln Douglass debate and Congressional debate. It also included five speech events: Extemporaneous Speaking, Prose and Poetry, Duo, Original Oratory and Dramatic Performance.

“It was cool because we got a lot of schools that have really great debate programs, so it added to our tournament because there were a lot of really top-notch debaters that showed up,” said social studies teacher and faculty sponsor Colin O’Brien.

Although debate members didn’t compete, Whitman’s speech team did. Junior Jacob Rosenblum won first place in Original Oratory, and junior Pablo Ramirez placed first in Dramatic Performance, among other strong finishes by the speech  members.

Despite this year’s increased number of participants, the tournament ran smoothly with the help of head coach Ari Parker, additional coaches and parent and student volunteers, said senior and debate president, Kevin Cheng.

Hosting tournaments is also a great way to gain recognition within the debating community, Cheng explained.

“The tournament is a good way to give back to the debate community and establish Whitman as not only a good team but also as a good host,” he said.