Most students would say hard work and determination is what drives them to success in the academic and extracurricular activities. But for other students, the key to success might just be an accidental blood sacrifice.

Last week, a series of heated varsity debates swarmed the classrooms of the C-wing in Cresskill High School. Red-faces, intense shrieking, and the harshest euphemisms you’ve ever heard stopped classes in their tracks as students were forced to hear the debaters passive aggressively or sometimes just aggressively argue over the topicality of the definition of education. This marks one of the very few times in Cresskill where vehemently screaming at another student will not result in detention.

At the end of the day, the Debate Team emerged successful and relatively unscathed. Two teams went undefeated with a 4-0 record, and one team won trophies by placing second out of overall teams as well as winning speaker awards.

As we all know, debaters put their blood, sweat, and tears into their work but the winning team, seniors Pooja Balar and Samantha Higgins, seemed to suggest that their success fulfilled the saying a little more literally than one might expect.

In a statement released to The Communiqué by Pooja Balar, she states that:

“Sam and I usually put in a decent amount of hours in for each debate, either by planning or constructing arguments beforehand. However, that week we had a limited amount of time because of college application deadlines. But, I think luck was on our side that day. Sam had seen a pack of deer in the Senior parking lot that morning. And we may have also accidentally performed a blood sacrifice to the Bergen County Debate League the night before.”

Balar went on to explain how her partner had received a paper cut when going through one of the “absurdly large” debate guidebooks and how there is no other possible way this team could have pulled through with a win considering how, by cruel fate, the first debate tournament was the week that all seniors had to get their early applications in by.

So, after days and hours of poring through documents and evidence, studying government papers probably more than they do for some classes, the varsity debate team appeared to win on the sole basis of ritualistic sacrifice and absolutely nothing else.

With the next debate hovering over the horizon and the pressure piling on for another successful tournament, hopefully the debate team can pull through with another unsuspecting and frankly occult win. Because in the end, a win is still a win and nothing in the Bergen County Debate League Handbook guidelines forbids the use of witchcraft in debate, only the use of visual aids and jeans.