Woodland’s Quiz Bowl team is nationals bound! After having to end their season early last year and not being able to participate in any tournaments, this year’s Quiz Bowl team has come back with a vengeance. The team is advised by Mama Manning and is co-captained by juniors Colin Slavin and Eric Meade. They’ve been practicing bi-weekly since before school was in session and have even been participating in mock tournaments against some of Woodland’s very own teachers in order to prepare themselves for the upcoming state and national tournaments. One of these teacher tournaments was broadcasted earlier this year and is available to rewatch on the Hawk Headlines website. Practice for the team normally consists of questions from past competitions that are on a variety of topics. (My personal favorites are about the most random things, for example, we got a question about Twinkies one time.)
States, which will be on Saturday, March 27th, and nationals, which will be later this year in May, will both be virtual tournaments, as all of the rest of this year’s competitions have been. If the team does well at states this weekend, they will qualify for the second nationals tournament, which is headquartered in D.C. and if they do well at the first nationals tournament in May, they will qualify for the third and final nationals tournament. Zach Drewry, a member of the varsity Quiz Bowl team, hopes to go far this year.
“I think we’re all smart enough to get to the third nationals; it’s just a matter of playing to the best of our abilities at all times, doing well in all of the matchups we’re in, and not underestimating any other teams.”
In order to still see each other and to work together more effectively, the team meets at Region 16’s District Offices in Prospect while they compete. The team is looking excitedly toward the competitions and will hopefully be very successful.
Since there are no seniors on the team, they will get to spend even more time together next year with the same people, possibly at in-person competitions; but regardless, they are just happy to be participating at all during such an unorthodox time.
