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Pennsbury Falcon Invitational 2026
FYI: This is NO actual hate to ANY teams, this is all jokes and memes and means no harm–we’re just High Schoolers debating with each other for fun and we like to joke about it! Well, except for Poly Preps Coach though…
PFI has got to be one of the most lively, my favourite tourneys and last travel tourney of the year :( (besides Nationals). With Bronx Science OZ winning the tourney…
Pennsbury High School is shoved in suburban Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania and is much shorter but also lowkey more challenging than other bid tournaments in the region. The most infuriating part of the tournament being the lack of judge prefs—allowing only four strikes in VCX for judges instead. Making it so if you get judge-screwed, deal with it. This is also where a lot of new debaters take off for their first regional and first travel tournament..ever! Penns having some really interesting competition and debaters just trying to see what does and doesn't work, making debating something again that should be funfor new debaters! And not something just to win rounds or bids, well that too of course.
Pennsbury is also one of the largest tournaments that we go to during the season with it having 50 entries in VCX and 17 other events–like what the hell is even Original Oratory or Declamation.
Besides that, we also have our fairshare of familiar faces such as seeing BCC again (!), Newark Science, Basis DC, Brooklyn Tech and Newark Tech all doing great this season and no different here.
Some other teams that have a… representation and… history have also made an appearance such as Poly Prep and Bronx Science of who both have excellent debaters as well.
Elims rounds having some obvious competitors such as Newark Science OO, Brooklyn Tech SH, Basis CM and AS, Bronx Science FB and OZ and other notable mentions showing up with their sparkly 5-0 and 4-1 ballots. Having a great final round of Basis AS versus Bronx Science OZ. As well with Rick Zong also not being able to wake up for about 20 minutes on the second day of elims, though I'm glad he remembered that he had to have the rest of a tournament to debate. Though, I would have liked to see Opitz debate Mav in finals. Basis AS losing on T-Subs was honestly a bit predictable as much as I hate to admit it, and let Velda, and her off, win nevertheless. And I congratulate OZ everso.
This year there were also new additions of schools who have never debated before at a regional bid tournament! Such as MacFarland (MS !), and Kipp--as well as teams from Flowers, DCI, and Bannaker!
And for the, less sophisticated stuff--specifically all the times Bronx Science OZ kept getting memed. In Quarters, Bronx Science OZ kept pronouncing the name of the Basis CM’s mech that’s, monstrous Elocution, as “monstrous Electrician”...imagine the speed face here.
This was also the tournament of “Veldaaaaa I need moar Off.” Basically, Round five, Bronx Science OZ went against Bannaker TT while they were breaking new. The 1NC started off with I believe seven off…then I believe ten but double digits isn't enough… and then more so now we’re up to 13…but she needed more off…Velda just could not stop sending out more off. This joke was created by them throwing all this shit at the wall and seeing what sticks type thinking with a T-Dev 2NR. She also clapped during the RFD when the Judge said the Neg won which lowkey threw me off because…okay.
The consequences from this was the entire bus ride back from Penns was fueled with memeing OZ for this for the next two hours before everyone shut up about it.
Besides all of that, I’m gald to say that I enjoyed this tournament for everything that it was worth and even though we didn’t break, I didn’t really expect to, I was definitely an experience with my friends, debaters from other schools, and new people to experience this and some notable shoutouts–
–Bannaker MO for this being their first regional and breaking new a K-aff for the first time!
–Kipp GW for this, also being their first regional, and doing really well even if they don’t think they did!
–Flowers GJ
–Bannaker TT
-PFI's hosts, Kaz and Jeff
–And everyone who broke, including NCX!
Sorry this is old and kinda short, but more to come!