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By Jordan Prestia

Leaning in, senior Srikar Turaga discusses the question with his teammates. The team went 3-3 during the Quiz Bowl tournament at Lansing Thursday, January 16.

The Quiz Bowl team competed in the Lansing tournament Thursday, Jan. 16. The team ended with a record of 3-3.

Senior Joan Downey thought the tournament got off to a rough start in the first round due to the hard competition and administration in the room.

“First-round was the most difficult for sure; we were against a very good team, and none of the people who were in the room running the event had [any] idea how a Quiz Bowl meet was actually supposed to happen,” Downey said.

Downey realizes that the team did not do their best during the tournament but thinks they can easily improve by focusing on their individual categories.

The Scholar’s Bowl team wins the fourth round of the tournament with a score of 60-50 against Shawnee Heights.

— Mill Valley News (@millvalleynews) January 16, 2020

“We perhaps were not our best today, but I think we just need to cover our bases more as far as individual categories are concerned,” Downey said.

As well as improving on their individual categories, Downey thinks it would be beneficial to the team if everyone practiced all the categories instead of focusing solely on their own.

“I think we need to work on branching out more as individual players,” Downey said. “A lot of our team members have a special topic they focus on, but I think it would be more helpful if we tried a more broad approach.”

Senior Eva Burke thinks one of the team’s strengths is the team chemistry and everybody’s intelligence in their topics.

“We all get along really well and we all have different strengths in different areas,” Burke said. “So, we have a wide variety of expertise.”

Burke believes their losses during the tournament happened for a number of reasons.

“Sometimes we aren’t fast enough, because we’re not sure about ourselves. Sometimes we’re too overconfident, like that last round. But a lot of it just depends,” Burke said. “Sometimes it’s just luck and what questions they ask and what we know.”

Downey thinks the biggest progress made this year was with the new Quiz Bowl team members and their confidence.

“The biggest leap in progress has been in our new team members, who have really stepped up and become more confident this year,” Downey said. “I think the team will be in good hands.”