WHS soars in Quiz Bowl tournament in Plymouth

By Jolene Bailey

On Feb. 8, Windham High School students participated in a Quiz Bowl tournament hosted by Plymouth High School.

Members of the WHS Quiz Bowl
Team counterclockwise from left
are Delia Tomkus, Francesca
Lomonte, Mason Bragdon, and
Nick Davenport review questions
during a practice session at the
school on Monday, Feb. 24.
PHOTO BY JOLENE BAILEY 

“A quiz bowl tournament is an academic competition where students compete in a number of matches throughout the day,” said John Ziegler, who coaches the high school Quiz Team at WHS. “Each match consists of a team of up to four players from one school going against a team of up to four players from another school. Whichever team scores the most points wins the match. At the end of the day, the team that won the most matches wins the tournament. Ties are broken by a total high score.”

For many Quiz Bowl participants, the most exciting part of every tournament is the first round as it faces the rest of the competition.

“Windham was facing one of the best teams in the tournament, Plymouth,” Ziegler said. “Windham jumped out to a big lead early, as Mason Bragdon was playing really well, and Plymouth's best player Reagan was having a hard time getting going. However, a couple mistakes by Windham let Plymouth back into the game, and Reagan took advantage. She went on a tear to put Plymouth in the lead going into the last question. Mason again stepped up, nailing the final question to tie the game.”.

This gave Windham a chance to win if they scored any one of three bonus questions.

The team missed the first two bonus questions and tensions were high, but Windham scored on the last bonus question to win and advance.

Students prepare for the quiz bowl tournaments by setting time aside to practice twice a week, Ziegler said.

Every Monday after school the team gathers to work on potential questions and to practice for upcoming Quiz Bowl events. On Thursdays they meet and practice for appearance on the television’s “High School Quiz Show.”

“As a quiz team, we attend two different types of tournaments. One is Quiz Show, a televised program that you can watch, High School Quiz Show Maine, on YouTube, with simple, often pop-culture based questions,” said Delia Tomkus, the captain of the WHS Quiz Team.

“Quiz Bowl, however, is significantly more academic. Quiz Bowl questions are often longer and more detailed than those on Quiz Show, and they cover a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, literature, science, pop culture and history.”

During practices the students share a number of resources as Ziegler works to create many Gimkits and other fun games dealing with specific knowledge that often will come up in Quiz Bowl events.

“Being a Quiz Team coach has been one of my favorite aspects of working at WHS. I enjoy watching the students learn and develop,” Ziegler said. “It's great when you see a student get a question right that they have missed in the past because they finally got that piece of knowledge ingrained. I also enjoy getting the opportunity to hang out with students who are genuinely interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge.”

Being in friendly competition with the underlying desire for learning has helped many students step out of their comfort zone and find their inner strengths.

At Plymouth High School, the WHS team that competed consisted of Tomkus, Chessie Lamonte, Mason Bragdon, and Nick Davenport found smooth sailing, beating all teams except for one taking second place at the tournament and placing first among the other Maine schools that participated.

Tomkus praised Bragdon, who was the sixth-highest scoring player at the tournament.

“Being a part of the Quiz Team has really helped me understand leadership, and how to work together better with other people,” she said.

Quiz Bowl is an extracurricular activity for students and Tomkus said her participation in it has left her with many great memories.

“Probably some of my favorite memories from being on the quiz team are the van rides home,” she said. “All of the stress of playing is gone, and we sing and listen to music. Sometimes, for our farther-away games, we stop to get dinner together, which is also fun.”

Ziegler said he was pleased with how the WHS team performed at Plymouth High School.

“As a whole, I was very happy with what the team accomplished on Feb. 8,” he said. “To come in second in a tournament that was stacked with our toughest competition was very impressive and bodes well for our two remaining tournaments of the season at Cony High on March 1, and the state championship here at Windham on April 5.” <