Dartmouth's top pair of debaters finished fifth in a competition with the seven best teams in the country at the Hanover Inn last weekend.
Andre Hylton '96 and Marc Wilson '96 lost four of their six matches in the round-robin competition. Before the contest, Hylton and Wilson had won 24 of their last 25 matches.
Northwestern University finished first, Wake Forest finished second and the University of Michigan finished third in the contest.
Teams from Baylor University, the University of Iowa and Wayne State University also competed.
Director of Debate and Forensics Ken Strange said a number of factors contributed to the defeat .
"There were a lot of distractions of the tournament being held here," Strange said. "And bad luck."
Strange said the Dartmouth debaters had already beaten most of the other teams at the competition.
Wilson said he thought the Dartmouth team deserved a higher finish than the judges gave them. The matches were judged by the coaches from the opponent schools and an assistant coach from Dartmouth.
Wilson said Northwestern will be Dartmouth's most formidable opponent for the rest of the season. Despite their below-par overall finish, Hylton and Wilson managed to defeat Northwestern in individual competition.
Final standings were determined from the teams' records after two days.
This year's debates focused on the question of whether the United States should increase security assistance to five middle eastern countries, team member David Reymann '96 told The Dartmouth in a previous interview.
Even though each round of debate has the same basic theme, the arguments are seldom dull, Strange said.
"None of the debates are the same," he said. The rhetoric can be as complex as the Middle East itself, Strange said.
Strange said team members spend as much time preparing for competition as they do studying for all their classes.
The debaters took first and third places in the first major tournament of the winter, held at West Georgia College in Carrollton, Ga., earlier this month.
This weekend the team will travel to Baylor University, in Waco, Texas to compete against many of the same teams they saw this weekend.
