The Quiz Bowl team placed third at regionals on Thursday, Feb. 1 at St. James. Placing in the top four qualified them for state on Saturday, Feb. 10 at DHS.

According to senior Landon Butler, preparation since the beginning of the school year improved their performance at regionals.

“I was confident we’d do well today since we brought such a strong team,” Butler said. “We’ve practiced three times a week since August, and devoted a significant portion of that time to reviewing regional questions from past years.”

Butler is grateful that their hard work throughout the season paid off..

“It’s a great feeling,” Butler said. “Qualifying for state was one of our primary goals for the season. We knew we were capable of doing so, and we went out and performed well.”

According to senior team captain Sam Phipps, the team achieved the results they wanted.

“We’re happy with how it went,” Phipps said. “We hoped to make the top four and got third so we’re happy with that.”

With a short period of time until state, Butler said they intend to work toward through struggles.

“We have one more week of practices,” Butler said. “We plan on devoting that time to addressing some of our weaknesses that held us back at regionals.”

Going into next week’s competition, Butler is feeling confident about their execution at state.

“We performed well against all our regional competition, including the teams that finished above us,” Butler said. “If we all perform to our capabilities, I’m expecting a high state finish.”

Butler believes there was some adversity at regionals, but in the end, they were happy with the results.

“We had some strong and weak rounds, but ultimately, finishing third against all 5A Eastern Kansas competition is something we all should be proud of,” Butler said.