Sophomore Juhi Yadav (left), debate team assistant coach Timmy Knox and senior Tristan Keene (right) pose after Yadav and Keene qualified as one of 64 pairs to make the state debate finals. They are the first team to ever accomplish the feat at Benicia High and in Solano County.

BENICIA – Senior Tristan Keene and sophomore Juhi Yadav became the first Benicia High students ever to qualify for the state finals in debate on Saturday, March 7, beating 26 other teams of debaters from some of the Bay Area’s best schools.  But what really surprised the people who know them wasn’t that Tristan and Juhi did so well at their qualifying tournament in Union City.

It was that they showed up at all.

Five days earlier, Tristan was ready to call it off. Between a nearly full-time job washing dishes and her demanding schedule of school work, she felt overwhelmed.

“I thought there was no way our tiny, underfunded program could compete with these very established teams with huge debate programs,” she said afterward. Juhi, her teammate and friend, talked her into it. They would do it for the experience.

The next day, Tristan got sick with a stomach virus.

All the same, after a grueling day on Saturday, the Benicia duo became one of 64 pairs from public and private schools in California to qualify in their format for the three-day finals. They are guaranteed to be a high seed.

Juhi Yadav and Tristan Keene down some ramen after a long day of debates.

No school from Solano County has ever qualified for the tournament.

“It definitely was a pretty good learning experience,” Tristan said. “And winning felt pretty good, too.”

To make it that far, the students had to understand the pros and cons of the topic, which was whether the U.S. should expand commercial use of nuclear energy. That meant delving into climate change, the costs of power generation, the risks of nuclear power plants, our problem with nuclear waste, the history of wars fought over oil, the potential of renewable energy, the impact of uranium mining, and much more.

Judges commended Tristan and Juhi for their use of logic, their clarity on complicated matters, and their skills as public speakers.

The duo and their teammates next look to raise funds while Tristan and Juhi prep for the state championship. Anyone interested in contributing can go to GoFundMe.com and search for “Benicia High Debate Team.”

(This article was originally published in the March 13 print edition of the Herald)

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