The New Haven varsity team brought in some members from junior varsity to make up for the loss of its captain and only senior on the team, Hannah Kruse, who was away for Senior Trip. The team also had extra practices to ensure that they were ready for districts.
The format was made up of the following four rounds: Round 1, fifteen toss up questions (the moderator read the question, and either team could buzz in); Round 2, ten toss ups with bonus; Round 3, ten toss ups; and then Round 4, ten more toss ups with bonus. The categories ranged from Social Studies, to Math Computation, to Art and Literature.
On the regular toss up questions , a player had to buzz in to give an answer, but on a bonus question, the answer was discussed as a group; then, the answer was given by the team captain. There could be a maximum of four players on the team at a time, and substitutions could be made between quarters.
Many of the moderators were teachers and helpers from New Haven school district, such as English teacher, Melissa Schwab, who was a reader for districts. “I had no idea what to expect, and I definitely didn’t expect what it was,” she reported. “When you’re the moderator, there’s more pressure, because you have to get it right. There was a lot more pronunciation than I expected. It was a lot of fun, and the kids were super smart.”
Two New Haven Scholar Bowl members, juniors Andrew Menke and Nathan Allgaier, made the All Districts team based on the number of points they each scored during the tournament. Andrew placed 4th, and Nathan placed 6th. “It was fun,” Nathan said. “I was sad that Hannah wasn’t there, since she was our main point scorer, but it gave me and Andrew a chance to get experience for next year to rack up points. And I feel disappointed that we lost that last game to a team that we already beat in the previous games.”
After the tournament, the coach of the scholar bowl team, Jared Pruessner, reflected on the competition: “The preliminaries went very well, and I was very pleased.” he explained. “Andrew and Nathan stepped up there, and Josh, too; he scored pretty well. Overall, in the prelims we did better than what I expected, and I didn’t really know what to expect. Being without Hannah makes things different, with her being the top scorer. That semifinal game, we just didn’t play our best. Next year, luckily everyone will be coming back, and we will try again. We didn’t have any players who played a significant amount of time on varsity last year, so for them to do as well as they did, they should be proud of themselves.”
-Robbie Cichon