"It's a real testament to the hard work that they've put in — not just this term, but over the last couple of years developing their debating skills," she said.
"It's a gruelling competition — they do six debates over the weekend, starting at 10am on Saturday, and then they started their final debate at 3pm on the Sunday."
Ms Power said it had been somewhere near 10 years since the school won the cup and she praised Whyte on her selection.
"She is a fantastic debater and she has worked very hard on her skills.
"She's an all-round scholar, and she would always be somebody that you would want in that team, hands down."
Joining Whyte will be Wanganui Collegiate's Marseille Bowie, who is in year 12 and will be the youngest member of the team.
She said that making the team was unexpected — "It was all a bit accidental."
"I haven't really done any debating outside of school, so I didn't really know why they chose me, there were lots of other people at the competition who were really good."
Marseille got into debating because there were not enough people in her school house team, so she joined up and ended up staying.
She has been in four house debates at school and the CNI competition was the first time she has competed outside of it.
She got good feedback from the judges — "They liked my style and clarity of ideas," she said.
"A lot of people have a quite aggressive style that can be really effective, but a bit hard to follow sometimes. I was told that I kind of do it opposite."
Marseille briefly met her teammates at the end of last weekend's competition, but was looking forward to preparing for the national finals with them.
"I watched them in the final — they're really good, super confident and it's obvious that they've got a lot of experience, a lot more than me," she said.
"I'm nervous, but excited. We all have different styles and the coaches will know how to make that work."
