Knowledge Bowl Team Goes to State Competition
April 3, 2019
On March 18th and 19th, eight students on the Manitou Springs High School Knowledge Bowl Team made their way up to Colorado State University in Fort Collins for the 2019 Colorado State Knowledge Bowl Tournament. The team made it to State by winning a wild card invitation shortly after they had a close competition at Regionals with Vanguard. Manitou lost by a few points to Vanguard, but because of how well they performed in the Regionals and in other competitions, it earned them a wild card ticket to State. The full team that participated at state was Jason Sellers (9), Connor O’Brien (9), Liam Davidson (11), Nathan Hudson (11), Mackenna Yount (11), Molly Arndt (12), Gunnar Marquardt (12) and DJ Char (12), all led by teacher and Coach Julie Gardner. The last time Manitou made it to State Knowledge Bowl was in 2017 with several of the same team members.
State consists of ten total rounds spread out over two days. The first round is written with 60 questions and after that day one has five oral rounds with 50 questions each. On the second day, there is another written round and three more oral rounds. The written round consists of 50 multiple choice questions and team members work together to answer as many questions correctly as possible within the time limit: 45 minutes. In each oral round, three teams try to answer the questions correctly before other teams and before the time runs out. Teams have 15 seconds to buzz in and an additional 15 to answer after they have buzzed in. Correct questions are worth one point each and if all three teams answer incorrectly the round moves on.
On day one, Manitou scored 39 points in the written round and scored 13, 10, 11, 7 and 13 points for rounds one through five respectively. On day two Manitou scored 40 points in the written round and scored 9, 7 and 7 points for the remaining three rounds. Top scorers for the oral rounds were Arndt and Sellers.
Knowledge Bowl State was a good experience for all team members because it gave them a chance to learn new things and to make connections with teams from other schools who participated at State. The friendly competition pushed the MSHS Knowledge Bowl team to do better in the following years and make it to State again. Making it to State was a good reward for the three dedicated seniors that were on the State team: Arndt, Char and Marquardt. It was a great way for them to end their final Knowledge Bowl season on a positive note while still having fun over the two days of competition.
Manitou placed 9th out of all the 3A schools attending and 33rd overall out of the 60 teams at State with a total of 149 points after all ten rounds. All in all, the Manitou’s team did well and placed high compared to past appearances at the State competition.
