Traveling on a Saturday morning, the students focused on staying awake and concentrating on the upcoming tournament. The darkness of the morning surrounded them, moving swiftly to get to Oklahoma to win the next tournament.
On February 1, 2020, juniors Jack Martin ’21, Drew Campbell ’21, Alejandro Meneses-Fish ’21, Emilio Rodriguez ’21 along with senior Trevlan MacGregor ’20 and Mr. Yohannes traveled to Oklahoma City to bring about the new age of the Jesuit History Bowl team, vying for a spot at nationals.
What is History Bowl?
Imagine Quiz Bowl but solely focused on history. Rounds are divided into 4 parts, each with its own unique questions. The first quarter contains 10 questions with a moderator reading a question and the fastest buzzer that gets the question right gets the 10 points for the team. The second quarter is similar to th e first quarter, with 10 questions, but each question has a bonus that is a question that the team who originally got the question can discuss to answer. The third quarter contains 3 topics where each team must answer the 20 questions as fast as they can in 3 minutes, with each correct answer adding 10 more points to the total score. Finally, the last quarter acts as the last hurrah for teams with 8 questions, with each question being worth 30 points if answered fast but only 10 if answered by the end of the question.
The Tournament
Driving out at 4 am on February 1, the team drove all the way to Norman, Oklahoma. There, the team competed in 5 rounds from 9 am to 1:45 pm. The Jesuit team went undefeated, beating every team in their path, including a round five matchup against last year’s Oklahoman state champions, Norman North, a team that hasn’t lost a history bowl round in 2 years. After an arduous five rounds, they blazed their way through to the semifinals against Santa Fe, where they once again beat Norman North, cementing their place in Jesuit History Bowl history.
Expectations
When asked about expectations going into the tournament, Campbell, captain of the team commented:
“Going into the tournament we were incredibly nervous. My nerves got to a point that I could feel my heartbeat ripple throughout my entire body and catch in my throat. I felt especially nervous about the tournament due to this being the first one that I organised for us to attend. We hoped for the best outcome from the tournament and believed we could win, but all of us had a slight belief that we might get destroyed in every round. To be honest, we really did not know what to expect.”
Reflecting over the teams accomplishments at the tournaments, Campbell elaborated “We definitely achieved what we had been hoping for. Winning the tournament was a dream come true, but the tournament also highlighted our weaknesses that we will need to improve upon before going to our next tournament.”
He said that he founded the club “purely based around a desire to use the Jesuit name for the competition. I had no idea at that point that we would be where we are now. We feel as though we solidified our existence as a club through this victory. We have spent the better part of 5 months as a completely informal club that only had one meeting, but we feel as though this victory has established this as a hopefully a permanent club at Jesuit. We look forward to expanding Jesuit’s History Bowl Club to the best of our ability. We are also hoping to compete at one more State tournament before this school year draws to a close.”
Stay tuned to The Roundup for more updates on the new History Bowl team!
