Gallery • 10 Photos

By Libby Mullican

Senior Emma Wilhoit counts with her fingers while during a Quiz Bowl tournament at De Soto on Tuesday Nov. 29. The team placed first overall.

Quiz Bowl took first place at its tournament on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at De Soto High School. A total of 30 teams participated in the tournament, and from Mill Valley, six varsity members competed: junior Landon Butler, junior Jarod Griggs, senior Tom McClain, junior Madeline Myrick, junior Sam Phipps, and senior Emma Wilhoit.

The team finished second in its pool, losing only to Gardner-Edgerton. Finishing second allowed the team to advance to bracket play and eventually work its way to the championship round against Blue Valley North. The round ended in a tie, but the team came out victorious after answering two tie-breaker questions, winning by a margin of 10 points.

Despite the high finish, the level of competition at the tournament proved to be a challenge for Wilhoit and the team.

“We went against a couple of 6A teams that were very strong and very organized,” Wilhoit said. “We were challenged by people of an equal skill set.”

Phipps believed the versatility of the team members allowed them to be more prepared for the tournament.

“I feel like we all know some of each category. [Butler] is definitely our math and physics kid. [McClain] knows a lot of history questions,” Phipps said. “Everybody else has their subject that they focus on.”

Wilhoit also attributed the team’s success to how well each member was able to utilize their individual skills in order to answer the questions accurately.

“I think that we were able to play to our strengths really well because we all have a subject or a couple of subjects that we know really well,” Wilhoit said. “Between the six of us, we were able to cover pretty much everything that was asked.”

Being one of three seniors, Wilhoit has took on a leadership role by helping the team become stronger.

“We lost a lot of really strong seniors last year so we’ve just been filling in their shoes, stepping in and making sure that we have strong people going to tournaments who are able to cover certain subjects,” Wilhoit said. “We thought we would have more of a rebuilding season because we lost so many strong seniors.”

According to Wilhoit, the success of this tournament has provided a necessary boost in their confidence.

“[The] tournament was a huge tournament with stiff competition and we were able to come out first,” Wilhoit said. “I think we came out of the tournament with a little bit of confidence, but hopefully not too much. We proved that even though we lost some good people, we can be just as good as we were before and work to be better.”