JHS Scholastic Bowl starts their season

JHS Scholastic Bowl starts their season

Claire Van Aken, staff writer

The Jacksonville High School Scholastic Bowl Team kicked off their season the first week in November and had great success. So far, the Varsity team is 2-1 and the JV team is 3-0. The team consists of twelve bright JHS students: Megan Walker, Joey Gallo, Nik Wollenhaupt, Spencer Rouland, Hunter Holaway, Claudia Blanford, Kiley Force, Izzy Cook, Rose Shirkey, Lexi Lane, Sophie Homolka, and Tristan Robinson, who compete in each match for the most points against other schools.

Coach Crivilare explained that a scholastic bowl match kind of looks like a game of Jeopardy, except the questions are read by the moderator, not shown on a screen. Teams of five have ten seconds for an individual team member to buzz in and give an answer. If a correct answer is given, the team earns 10 points and is awarded the first response on bonus questions worth up to 30 points. The questions are in a variety of challenging academic subject areas like math, science, fine arts, literature, and history. 

The JHS teams practice every Monday. At the end of each season, coaches get sets of all the questions asked in matches that past season and add them to big binders of practice questions. To practice, the students set up the buzzer systems and run practice matches with the coaches moderating. The coaches and team captains offer tips and strategies for better match play or to remember hard or confusing topics that come up frequently. 

Coach Crivilare adds, “Everyone is welcome to participate in scholastic bowl! There’s a misconception that you have to be in honors classes to be successful on the team, which just isn’t true. Everyone has a set a knowledge that’s going to be relevant somewhere in a scholastic bowl match, whether it’s a book they’ve read that no one else has or a science fact they happen to know.” In years where there has been a huge turnout for the varsity team, the coach holds tryouts consisting of a written trivia test and a buzzer speed test, but that isn’t always needed. 

The varsity team is captained by senior Kiley Force and coached by Mrs. Crivilare. The JV team is coached by Ms. Arnold. JHS is actually hosting BOTH the JV and Varsity CS8 scholastic bowl tournaments on Saturday, December 7, and would love friends and family to turn out and give support. Anyone interested in joining scholastic bowl next year should watch the announcements in September or check in with Coach Arnold or Coach Crivilare.