May 2025 - ModernBrain Results

NIETOC (National Individual Events Tournament of Champions):

We won a school sweepstakes award for Act II schools, which is the most sweepstakes points any academy has ever received at the most competitive speech contest in America. In fact, no other academy has received ANY sweepstakes award at NIETOC in the last three years. We've won two.

Each category started with hundreds to thousands of contestants. Most did not even qualify to the contest, let alone advance.

• Informative: 2nd - Kathleen Hong, Quarterfinals - Meera Kalluraya (Mitty)
• Impromptu: 8th - Izzie Tran, Quarterfinals - Kelly Liu
• Expository: Quarterfinals - Izzie Tran
• Prose: Quarterfinals - Vicky Yang
• POI: Quarterfinals - Natalie Hong, Pranya Nagpal (Evergreen)
• Oratory: Octofinals - Luna Bouhairi

Empire Spring League Championship:

ModernBrain is in FIRST PLACE going into elimination rounds for the Empire mock trial championship (out of 70+ teams).

Christiana Garcia, Mira Jiang, Ethan Bai, and Jaden Hong (eighth grader!) all received PERFECT ranks as attorneys and witnesses.

California Middle School State Championship:

We were BACK-TO-BACK STATE CHAMPIONS here--the #1 program out of the 50 best school teams and academies in California. We had as many top two placements as the second and third-best teams COMBINED.

• Extemp: 1st - Jiayou Liu
• Informative: 1st - Sofia Patel
• Poetry: 1st - Shivani Bansal
• Policy: 1st - Bella Tan/Madeline Jun, 2nd - Ethan Yan/Mia Tian, 3rd - Johnny Wald/Sarah Wald, 4th - Benjie Wald/Oliver Cha
• Congress: 1st - Brian Tan, 9th - Derek Song; Semifinals - Celina Wang, Leah Feigenbaum, Nish Wadhwa
• Public Forum: 2nd - Elizabeth Lu/Elsa Zhou; Doubles - Kylie Zhang/Audrey Ballon, Ivan Zhang/Juliette Scott, Ryan Kong/Alexa Kim
• Oratory: 2nd - Sofia Patel, 5th - Irene Cho; Semifinals - Yuqiao Shao, Sofia Patel, Rachel Huang, Irene Cho; Quarterfinals - Nathan Kung, Pranamya Adhitham
• Prose: 2nd - Luna Hu, 4th - Tianni Gong
• Storytelling: 2nd - Ramsey Ma
• Impromptu: 3rd - Yuqiao Shao, 4th - Oliver Dai, 5th - Melody Mo, 7th - Sissi Wang; Semifinals - Maribelle Ganelis, Pranamya Adhitham, Tianni Gong, ; Quarterfinals - Jiayou Liu, Evan Liu, Camryn Mai
• Dramatic: 5th - Camryn Mai
• Declamation: Semifinals - Sissi Wang, Dipanjali Suresh
• Lincoln-Douglas: Triples - Maximus Wang

Middle School Tournament of Champions:

Congratulations to our students on, once again, taking home championships at this national contest! We have been the most consistently successful speech, LD and Policy squad at the MSTOC back to back.

• Impromptu: 1st - Avelyn Jing (Harker), 3rd - Siri Chundru (Harker)
• Oratory: 1st - Siri Chundru (Harker)
• Extemp: 1st - Avelyn Jing (Harker)
• Lincoln-Douglas: 1st - Jonah Kim (Vanguard), Octos - Jason Rong, Doubles - Rena Zhuang, Alex Huang
• Lincoln-Douglas Speakers: 2nd - Jonah Kim, 3rd - Isa Dash
• Policy: Semifinals - Charlie Pan/Stella Pellier, Quarterfinals - Melody Wu/Evan Choe, William Lin/Nesara Shetty, Octofinals - Patrick Quon/Tony Li, Eugene Kim/Lucas Yang, Gloria He/Daniel Lu
• Policy Speakers: 1st - William Lin, 2nd - Nesara Shetty, 5th - Charlie Pan, 7th - Stella Pellier
• Congress: Semifinals - Carrie Rao

California High School State Championship:

We're proud of our students from across the state for earning their placements in the top 18 students in Califronia (out of many hundreds of initial entrants).

• Impromptu: 2nd - Meera Kalluraya (Mitty, sophomore), 3rd - Luna Bouhairi (Northwood, junior)

• Informative: 7th - Kathleen Hong (Troy, sophomore), 13th - Izzie Tran (Laguna Hills, freshman)

• National Extemp: 11th - Claire Liu (Portola, junior)

• POI: 3rd - Natalie Hong (Sunny Hills, freshman), 13th - Pranya Nagpal (Evergreen, junior)

Kathleen also took 2nd in INFO and Natalie 3rd in POI at the Cal Async Scrimmage contest.

Model United Nations Results from the last few months...

LBIMUN (March 29, 2025):

• Adrian Qiao - Outstanding
• Aly Kakajanov - Commendation
• Peyton Tan - Outstanding and Research
• Pyron Tan - Research

NHSCMUN (April 26, 2025):

• Jason Zhang - Outstanding
• Nanki Mattewal - Outstanding
• Logan Cho - Best Delegate
• Anthony Liu - Outstanding
• Conrad Chow - Outstanding
• Liz Hsiu & Hector Geng - Outstanding

Claremont McKenna MUN (April 26-27, 2025):

• Kaz Karimi - Diplomatic Commendation
• Daniel Dong & Drew Zhang - Honorable Mention
• Linda Frazier & Elim Sun - Outstanding
• Emma Wallis - Best Delegate