WEST POINT, Ala. – The West Point High School (WPHS) Scholars Bowl team has been on a white-hot streak in the quiz world, winning match after match. The students are making a name for themselves in the circuit of the smarts, as a whole and individually.
As a team, they’ve brought home the title of Division Two Alabama Scholastic Competition Association (ASCA) State Champion; the team also clinched one of the coveted top 10 spots at the National Academic Quiz Tournament Small School National Championship Tournament (NAQT SSNCT) coming in eighth place in the nation. Preparations, quizzes and study sessions are currently underway for the scholars, as they begin the journey to the three 2024 National Championship Tournaments they are competing in this spring, hoping to cement their place as one of the best teams and competitors in high school scholars bowl tournaments.
“We’ve had a lot of success over the years,” said WPHS Scholars Bowl Sponsor Lee Henry. “Almost our entire team has returned this year. We will be going back to that tournament (NAQT SSNCT) the last weekend in April and hope to place even higher.”
Individually, one student is preparing to fly solo at a national quiz competition. Brodie Henry will compete on Sunday, April 7, in Rosemont, Illinois. He will compete in a 260-player field, with 32 states, the District of Columbia and South Korea represented.
Said Coach Henry, “Quiz bowl is a team activity. The individual tournament that Brodie is competing in is a bit of a novelty. It’s really the only time individuals compete against other individuals instead of teams versus teams.”
The individual quiz bowl is a new concept for some of the competing schools, the NAQT bringing the individual tournaments to fruition for the first time in 2018, pausing for the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, making 2024’s Individual Player National Championship (IPNC) only six years old.
“This quiz bowl event is extraordinary in that it is an individual competition, without the support of teammates. Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers and answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports and popular culture,” said NAQT Vice President of Marketing Dwight Kidder. “Quiz bowl matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.”
The Individual Player National Championship Tournament results will be updated throughout the day at www.naqt.com/go/stats/14705 on April 7.
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