Cabot’s “A” Quiz Bowl team won the Watson Chapel Invitational in Pine Bluff on January 15.
After coasting through the morning preliminary rounds at Watson Chapel with a gaudy 485 point-per-game average, Cabot A, consisting of seniors Layne Bernardo, Tony Cardillo, Will Otter, and junior Jordan Reed, earned the top seed and a first-round bye for the afternoon’s bracket play.
The younger “B” team, featuring junior Harrison Cardillo, and sophomores Zayne Derden, Celina Miranda, and Emily Riley, also played well, going 2-1 in prelims and starting the 15-team tournament as the ninth seed.
As a result of the seeding, the “B” team had a chance to play the “A” team in the second round of the tournament, but lost a close first-round match to Benton B.
The “A” team quickly avenged the “B” team’s loss with a 355-100 victory against Benton B.
In the semifinals, Cabot A didn’t bend against much stronger competition, winning handily 260-120 over Central.
In the final match of a tournament for the second time this year (they lost in sudden-death overtime at the Centerpoint tournament in November), Cabot A struggled early against Episcopal Collegiate.
They found themselves down 50-90 after the first round, and Episcopal answered the first two bonus questions of the second round to widen the gap.
The team was resilient though, answering the last two bonus questions to make it a manageable 45-point deficit going into the third round, the lightning round, during which each team has 60 seconds to answer ten questions in a chosen category.
Cabot A chose “Treaties,” which included questions about the Treaty of Utrecht and the Camp David Accords, and “ran” the round by answering all ten questions, which earned them a 20-point bonus.
After Episcopal sputtered on their lightning round, Cabot had a 25-point lead heading into the final 20 questions.
Episcopal quickly got two to make it only a five-point match, but a nervy Cabot team held on and eventually widened the gap back up.
Cabot A won 285-250 for Cabot’s first quiz bowl tournament win since 2008. They’ll compete at Morrilton tournament on February 12 and the Benton tournament on March 5 and continue on to the Conway regional tournament on March 12.
“I think we’ll do very well at the tournaments,” said Sarah Cantrell, the coach and coordinator of the team before the Watson Chapel tournament.
Earlier this year, the team won 2nd place at the Centerpoint invitational. Cantrell was very proud of this achievement and said she believes the team will place well in the upcoming tournaments.
Quiz bowl is a four-round competition where a moderator reads questions to two teams.
The player who buzzes in first gets to answer the question and if he is correct, he scores points for their team. If not, the other team gets a chance to answer.
The team meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school in Jana Smith’s room to practice.
Riley, new to Quiz Bowl this year, said “I love Quiz Bowl because we always answer really random questions and we have a lot of fun.”
During practice, the team plays practice games against each other.
“Everyone in the group gets along, and we’ve worked so hard that I think we’ll do awesome at all the tournaments,” said Celina Miranda.