‘Battle of the minds’
Published 10:16 pm Tuesday, January 27, 2015
King’s Fork High School’s Scholastic Bowl team is, in front, Alandra Copeland, Tyla Holloway, Arielle Reyes and Chauntel Coombs; middle, co-coach Katherine Byrnes, Akira Garcia, Kenny Nguyen, Hannah Atkins, Shannon Gerton and co-coach Maria Ojeda; rear, Lindsay Carlesi, Nicole Gordon, Sydney Billmeyer, Antonio Leija and Dexter Hardy.
King’s Fork High School’s relatively new Scholastic Bowl team is celebrating after winning a berth in the regional tournament next month.
The Bulldogs will take part in the competition at Monacan High School in Richmond on Feb. 7, after becoming runners-up in a previous round at Lakeland High School on Jan. 14.
Nansemond River High School’s team has also progressed to the regionals after winning the competition earlier this month, said Katherine Byrnes, co-coach of the King’s Fork team with fellow Spanish teacher Maria Ojeda.
Byrnes said her team is in only its third year, and just its second year in the conference. “Only the top two teams go to the regionals,” she said.
“It’s pretty significant, because we are a new team and a lot of our members are first- or second-year members. … (And) in our district competition, we didn’t place that well. For us to be making it to region is exciting.”
Dexter Hardy, a senior, is usually team captain — an honor earned by having been King’s Fork High’s “stand-out” player last year, according to Byrnes.
“I joined because my Spanish teacher asked me to do it, and I wanted to do something after school,” Hardy said.
“It’s something to give me a little more interaction — this gives me a great set of friends to do something I love with.”
While Hardy’s in his second year with the team, Tyla Holloway, also a senior, is in her first. “As someone into trivia, it’s kind of like Jeopardy, but with a team,” Holloway said.
“I tend to do really well in literature and music questions.”
Even though competitions are very competitive, they don’t necessarily feel that way, Holloway said. “Getting to work together lowers the pressure,” she added.
Scholastic Bowl competitions involve three rounds. Round 1 contains 15 toss-up questions; the first student to buzz in with a correct answer wins the points for their team.
In the second round, 10 questions are directed to one team at a time. Other teams have the opportunity to jump in and score the points if the first team gets it wrong.
The third and final round consists of another 15 toss-up questions.
“I basically go off what I already know — my past experience,” Antonio Leija, a senior at King’s Fork High, said of his preparation regimen.
“I guess you could say it was a battle of the minds,” Leija added.
