Quiz Bowl team places first in state, 45th in nation in national 3-2-1 competition

    Results were recently tabulated and released for the online 3-2-1 competition in which the Quiz Bowl team competed April 27. The team placed first in the state and 45th nationally.

    “It’s really exciting,” sophomore Lindy Morris said. “I’m kind of surprised we did that well.”

    3-2-1 is a team-based competition during which Quiz Bowl members work together to answer open-ended questions displayed on a computer.

    “The entire Quiz Bowl team—there are like 15 or 20 of us—is sitting in a room, and the questions come up on the screen, and we talk about the answers, and then we type it in,” senior Hudson Moore said.

    Questions are grouped in blocks of three “clues” that lead the team to an answer. Answering a question correctly after the first clue earns the team three points, answering correctly after the second clue earns the team two points and answering correctly after the third clue earns the team one point. The team has the potential to earn six points per question if they answer the question correctly after the first clue.

    “We were feeling really good, because we were making some educated guesses [when] we didn’t know the exact answer, and we were getting a lot of them right,” Moore said.

    According to advisor Sara Keever, regular season preparation and teamwork played substantial roles in the group’s success.

    “The regular practice all year long and the brush-ups that they do on curriculum prepares them for [the competition],” Keever said. “The way it’s set up, they compete as a team, and they work together as a group.”

    Following the win, some team members were wary of the numerous seniors who will be leaving the club.

    “I kind of feel like we’re going to do worse [next year], actually, because most of [the answers] came from the seniors, and they kind of held up our team,” Morris said.

    However, Moore remains optimistic.

    “I know I’ll miss them a lot, but there were a lot of freshmen [on the team] this year, so I think that the future of Quiz Bowl is looking very bright,” Moore said.

    Moore encourages underclassmen to consider joining the Quiz Bowl team.

    “If you are really interested in Quiz Bowl, that’s awesome,” Moore said. “Like I always say, you don’t have to know a lot to be in Quiz Bowl. Everyone knows something, and everyone has the ability to answer at least one question, and we need everyone we can get.”

– By Becca Heilman