INSPIRED. Quiz Bowl Dynasty
After the first round of play at last Saturday's annual county-wide Quiz Bowl competition, things weren't looking so good for the three-time champion Lee County High School Yellow Jacket team.
“In the first game, we got destroyed for sure,” said senior Brandon Figon.
“Southern Lee had a 150-point lead on us,” added 11th grader Maya Kovaskitz.
But that first round loss was something of a wakeup call for the team, which has spent the past three years establishing a Quiz Bowl dynasty, and they knew they'd have to be perfect from there on out in order to secure a fourth consecutive victory over other competing high schools.
And perfect from there on out they were, winning matches against Lee Christian, Lee Early College and two more straight against Southern Lee to take the title once more.
“When we lost in the first round, I got pretty discouraged,” said senior Joshua Randolph. “I was very proud of the team. They were able to contribute more than I was in a lot of ways.”
“I think it brought us back to reality,” senior Jacob Kelly explained. “We understood that it's not easy to win every single match in a row.”
Coach Stephen Roman, along with Coach Matt DeCerbo, knew the team could come together and move forward.
“That first loss put additional pressure on the team, but they have had to come through the loser’s bracket before,” he said. “We emphasize the importance of always doing your best, and all four teams in the competition gave their best. We were impressed not only by how our team rallied, but by how all the teams represented Lee County Schools. It also speaks to the terrific job all the coaches are doing in forming their teams.”
Saturday's Quiz Bowl event was held at the Mann Center near downtown Sanford and hosted by the Lee County Library. A sort of mash-up between “Jeopardy!” and “Family Feud,” teams of four field questions posed by a moderator; if one team doesn't answer correctly, the other gets a chance to “steal” for half the points. The teams can switch players out between matches.
The team's members said that having their backs against the wall made them assess the other teams and get serious.
“On knowledge of the questions, Lee Early College is probably a better team than both us and Southern Lee,” Randolph said. “But we noticed them having some communication issues at the table, and that made it easy for us to pick up some of their half-point questions.”
For Figon, Kelly, Kovascitz, Randolph, and senior Logan Clear, the fourth straight victory was also their final. Each of them (even junior Kovascitz) will graduate in the spring and move on to college. Each of them said spending time learning “random facts,” as Kelly called them (for example, Antarctica was the continent with the least involvement in World War II), has prepared them well for whatever comes after graduation.
“There's a certain element of having confidence in your knowledge,” Randolph said. “The gratification of knowing something, it makes you feel smart. It makes you more confident in pursuing smart things.”
Kovaskitz concurred, noting that with confidence comes a willingness to make herself heard.
“I'm much more confident in what I know,” she said. “It's made me more likely to speak up if I think I know something.”
And Figon said that confidence has made him more willing to step outside his comfort zone.
“It makes it easier to try new things,” he said. “Especially going to college, I'm going to meet more people and have a good time.”
But as the victorious team graduates, they're not just leaving the program behind. They said they're already having meetings to try to recruit new members to take their place next school year.
“The team is going to be empty next year,” Kelly said. “We have to find some more people.”
Inspired is a digital digest published each week during the academic year by Lee County Schools to highlight accomplishments of students, faculty and staff.
All Inspired articles are available online at www.lee.k12.nc.us, and if you have any story ideas, please send them to inspired@lee.k12.nc.us.