Welcome!

It is our great pleasure to invite you to the Saint George’s Invitational Tournament (December 13-15) for a weekend that promises some of the toughest debates and best hospitality in the entire Pacific Northwest.

The tournament will run Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, featuring six preliminary rounds and an octafinals break in Open Policy. 

The tournament is proud to offer a Tournament of Champions (TOC) bid to teams reaching the Final Round. 

Feel free to text directly with questions about the Saint George’s tournament (509-993-0644) or contact the tournament at:

Looking forward to seeing you in December,

Chad Rigsby

Fees and Logistics

Registration will take place on tabroom.com.

Each school may enter up to three teams in the Open Policy Division. 

We will accept entries until Dec. 6, or until we are full, whichever comes first.   We will allow drops without penalty until Dec. 10.  After that, any team dropping out of the tournament will forfeit their entry.  We will waitlist teams as the division reaches capacity.  After formal registration closes, we will begin moving teams from waitlists, as space allows.  We will also consider allowing schools to enter fourth teams in a division. 

School Fee:  $50 

Policy Team Fee:  $50

Uncovered Policy Judge Fee:  $350 or the tournament will drop the school’s competitors to fit coverage.

Checks should be made out to “Saint George’s School.”

If you're interested in online payment, click this link:  https://www.sgs.org/f/bc76

No hybrid teams please.  The TOC also does not allocate bids to winning hybrid teams or to maverick debaters. 

Important Dates

Release Waitlist Teams:  December 4

Fees Set:  December 4

Finalize Judging:  December 9

Registration Closes:  December 1

Prefs Due:  5 pm December 12

Judging

Each school is required to supply judging to cover their entry:  one judge covers two Policy teams. 

We have a limited pool of hired judging available.  If you need to hire a judge, contact Chad Rigsby at chad.rigsby@sgs.org.  We will try to put you in contact with an available judge—no guarantees! 

Policy judges should make sure that their philosophies are available tabroom.com, and that they flag any conflicts of interest in advance. 

We will use mutual preference judging.

Debate judges are committed for one round after the elimination of competitors from their school; failure to show for essential rounds may result in fines or sanctions against individual teams, especially if the tournament has to pay to cover the missing judge.

Schools are responsible for verifying that the judges in their employ have passed necessary state background checks.

Debate Rules

Policy teams will debate the 2019-2020 NSDA topic. 

Round times are 8-3-5 with 8 minutes prep.

Rounds 1 and 2 will be pre-set in all divisions; after that, debate rounds will be power matched accordingly.

We do not break brackets in elimination rounds—if two teams from the same school hit in out rounds, we will advance one team over the other, based either on coaches’ decision or their seeding.  Coaches should come to the tab room in that event and direct us as to their preference.

All debate rounds will have set start times before 9 pm, per Washington state (WIAA) rules.

Lodging

For teams arriving from out of town, we have reserved a reduced-rate block of hotel rooms at:

La Quinta Inn & Suites Spokane North

9601 North Newport Highway

Spokane, Washington 99218

(509) 468-5020

To book rooms, call the front desk and ask for the "Saint George's Tournament" block.  The reserved rate is $104+tax/night.  Reserve before November 12 to receive the block rate. 

Food

Debaters should bring cash to cover food expenses.  Saint George’s is about a ten-minute drive from plenty of fast food, including Subway, Carl’s Jr., Taco Time, Atilano’s, Zip’s, and several other places.

Debaters and coaches should also expect food trucks at Saint George’s at meal times, and plan on available concessions throughout the weekend.

Tournament Schedule (Tentative)

Friday

Registration        3:45 pm

Round 1                4:30 pm

Round 2                6:30 pm

Round 3                8:30 pm

Saturday

Round 4                8:30 am

Round 5                11:00 am

Round 6                2:20 pm

Octafinals            5:00 pm

Sunday

Quarter s              8 am

Semifinals           11 am

Finals                     2 pm