2026 Sacramento Saddle-Up: Limited Prep Tournament
Contend Speech & Debate (CA) · Oct 2-3, 2026
Completed
9:31 AM Pacific
Novice Mars Hill
There will be 3 rounds for this event. Students must speak about a different topic each round. The topics for every round will be chosen randomly from the following list:
Current Film and Telvision (last 5 years)
1. (6) Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (PG) 2022
2. (7) The Boys in the Boat (PG-13) 2026
Classic Media: Film and Television
3. 5) I Love Lucy, S2, Ep.1, "Job Switching" (TV-PG) 1952
Classic Media: Music
4. (10) "Greatest Love of All" (Whitney Houston)
Current Music
5. (3) "Fairytale" (Livingston)
6. (6) "Pictures of Mountains" (Cody Fry)
Literature: Poetry
7. (11) "A Poison Tree" by William Blake
The Arts: Plays and Musicals
8. (2) "Fiddler on the Roof" by Bock, Harnick, and Stein
The Arts: Visual Art
9. (7) Empty by Rone
10. (10) The Parthenon of Books by Marta Minujin
Cultural Voices: Short Films
11. (7) "Author Mel Robbine Explains the 'Let Them' Approach to Living" (2025)
12. (10) "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" (2013)
Novice Mars Hill is a non-NITOC qualifying event. To be eligible for this event students must be between the ages of 13 and 15 in 2026 and not have any "green checkmarks" for Mars Hill.
The novice division is designed to allow younger students to gain experience and practice without having to have all the knowledge necessary to be prepared to answer the complete list of Mars Hill topics.
Tournament Events
Debate
- Novice Parliamentary Debate Non-qual
- Parliamentary Debate Qual
Speech
- Apologetics Qual
- Extemporaneous Qual
- Impromptu Qual
- Mars Hill Qual
- Novice Apologetics Non-qual
- Novice Mars Hill Non-qual
- Storytelling Qual
Tournament Timetable
- Tournament Status will update to Drops only at 12:01 am Sat 09/12/2026 (Pacific)
- Community Judge registration will open at 12:00 am Sun 09/13/2026 (Pacific)
- Tournament Status will update to Open at 8:00 am Mon 09/14/2026 (Pacific)
- Meal registration will close at 12:01 am Sat 09/26/2026 (Pacific)
- Tournament Status will update to Closed at 12:01 am Sat 09/26/2026 (Pacific)
- Community Judge registration will close at 5:00 pm Sat 10/03/2026 (Pacific)
What the statuses mean
- Setup
- The tournament is still being set up.
- Open
- Registration is open — families can register for the tournament.
- Drops Only
- No new entries are allowed, but families can drop existing ones.
- Closed
- Registration is closed — no adds or drops. Contact the tournament director with questions.
- Completed
- The tournament is finished.