Manitou Takes Fifth at First Knowledge Bowl Competition of the Season
October 11, 2018
The first Knowledge Bowl competition of the 2018-19 school year was held at Woodland Park High School on Saturday, September 29. MSHS took three teams and all did well in the competition. Team captains were Molly Arndt (12) for Team A, Mackenna Yount (11) for Team B and David Misyura (12) for Team C.
Knowledge Bowl competitions consist of four rounds, one of which is a written round while the rest are spoken rounds. Each round consists of 40 questions: multiple choice and free response.
In the written round, the people on each team are allowed to talk to each other, so teams strategize the best ways to answer questions in the timed round. Answer sheets were bubbled out, and with the five-minute mark, all Manitou teams turned in their final answers. Manitou Springs Team A ended the first round with 30 points, Manitou Springs Team B ended with 21 points and Manitou Springs Team C had 26 points.
These points determined which teams were competing against each other for the spoken rounds. In these, there are three teams in a room with at most four people on each team. Team members are not allowed to talk to each other at this time, so hand signals are used by captains to determine who answers the question for the team.
Team C answered 12 out of 40 questions correctly, Team A answered 8 out of 40 questions correctly and Team B answered 7 out of 40 questions correctly in the second round.
In the third round, both the A and B teams scored 14 out of 40 questions and Team B scored 6 out of 40 questions. As the rounds go on, the questions get increasingly harder to answer.
In the fourth and final round, Team A scored 9 out of 40 questions, Team C scored 7 out of 40 questions and Team B scored 4 out of 40 questions correctly.
For the final placement of the first Knowledge Bowl competition, Pine Creek A got first place and took home the traveling trophy with 76 total points, Palmer Ridge A took second place with 64 points total and Rampart A placed third also with 64 points. Manitou Springs A placed fifth with a total of 61 points, Manitou Springs B placed 11th with 51 points total and tied with Manitou Springs C, also with 51 points.
Lead scorers on each team contributed to the total by scoring over 5 points total. On Team A, Arndt scored 14 points and Jason Sellers (9) scored 9 points. On Team B, Tyler Doherty (12) scored 7 points, Liam Davidson (11) scored 8 points, and Yount scored 10 points. Nathan Hudson scored the highest number of points on Team C and for all Manitou Teams combined with a whopping 18 points.
Along with this win, some members of the team also qualified for Matchwits, a three day televised competition in Pueblo. Arndt, Marquardt, Davidson, Hudson and DJ Char (12) were on the team that participated in the Qualifying Tournament, scoring 48.5 points and placing 6th. They will be on the 34th season of the show, which airs on Rocky Mountain PBS. The competition is November 2 through 4 and the team will travel up to Pueblo to attend.
