Despite a mediocre 5-3 record during the first round of the National Debate Tournament, Northwestern Debate Society stepped up its performance when faced with elimination and ended up winning the competition’s championship.

The Debate Society, coached by communication studies Prof. Scott Deatherage, took home its fifth national championship in nine years at the National Debate Tournament in Springfield, Mo., during Spring Break.

Team members said they believed they could pull off the victory even after falling short of expectations in the tournament’s first round, where they lost three matches.

“We had such a good year that we knew it was tough for us to lose if we performed at our highest level,” said Jonathan Paul, a Speech senior.

Paul and Jacob Foster teamed up for the second year in a row, accompanied by two other NU teams, neither of which made it past the tournament’s first round. The national tournament victory concluded an outstanding year for the duo, which included tournament wins at Harvard University, Wake Forest University and the University of Southern California.

“It had been a strong year, so we were one of the favorites going into the tournament,” Paul said. His team ranked second out of the tournament’s original field of 80.

In the first round, all 80 teams competed in eight debates, needing five victories to advance. The team survived the round, and were ranked 13th among the 28 remaining teams.

The debates then switched to single-elimination format, which Paul and Foster described as the tournament’s most tense stretch.

“Waiting for (the decision) following these debates was particularly nerve wracking for me as a senior because I knew that if I had lost I had given my last speeches,” Paul said.

After squeaking past University of California, Berkeley in the quarterfinal, the round in which it was defeated last year, NU had easier times against the State University of West Georgia in the semi-finals and the University of Kentucky in the finals.

Each round is evaluated by five judges who mark based on quality of debate and on which team has better research to back its claims. Paul said he and Foster spent about six hours a night researching in the weeks preceding the tournament and that they put in even more time as the tournament drew closer.

The debate topics spanned different aspects of U.S. federal policy toward Native-American reservations. To accompany their research, Foster and Paul took an anthropology course Winter Quarter about Native-American history.

“I became much more interested in the topic as the year went on,” said Foster, a Speech jnuior. “It’s an important issue and one we don’t really get to discuss that much.”

Along with its dedication to hours of research, the team’s previous year of experience as one of its major advantages in the championship run, Paul said.

“We were able to work really well together because it was our second year with each other,” he said. “This enabled us to perform at our highest level in the elimination rounds.”