Winning 10 rounds and losing none, Langley’s Quiz Bowl team went undefeated at the Centennial Invitational (hosted by Centennial High School) on October 1. The six-player team consisted of Edward Guo, Lilian Su, Ryan Minton, Ian Hoffman, William Gotts, and Preenaka Dutt, with four members playing at a time.
Ian Hoffman, a co-president of the Quiz Bowl Club (also called the Scholastic Bowl Club), expected to start off the year easy, opting for the Standard Division at the Centennial Invitational, rather than the more competitive Tournament Division. While the Tournament Division can qualify a team for national-level tournaments, the Standard Division cannot.
“This packet set is pretty low-level,” Hoffman said. “This tournament is an easier pick out of what we would do in a year.”
Aside from determining which tournaments to enter, Hoffman also had to account for the unexpected number of freshmen on the team.
“For the freshman, a lot of their experience just came from middle school,” Hoffman said. “Most of the preparation we did was getting the freshmen, which were most of the players at that tournament, to be more accustomed to high school quiz bowl.”
Ryan Minton was a freshman at the tournament who previously participated in Quiz Bowl tournaments at Cooper Middle School. He has participated in Quiz Bowl tournaments in both 7th and 8th grade, and in 8th grade, he went to the 2023 Middle School National Championship Tournament (also known as MSNCT-23).
“I honestly didn’t think that we would do too well because…coming from middle school, it’s a pretty big difference,” Minton said. “If you compare introductory high school to middle school nationals, which is what we call NMSCT, it’s honestly easier than middle school national level, even the more preliminary rounds.”
Even in the less competitive standard division, there were some rounds that were found to be tough.
“The most memorable [victory] was the one against Basis,” Hoffman said. “The only possible way for us to win in that scenario was to answer the first question correctly, in power [where a an extra 5 points are awarded for answering correctly before a certain point in the question], so it has to be fast, and then get two out of the three bonus questions, and that was exactly what we did—and that only put us ahead by five points.”
The team felt that the tournament was enjoyable, as they had little stress with the less competitive competition. Many topics were covered in the tournament, some of which were favored by the players.
“During the tournament, I had a lot of fun,” Minton said. “Seeing that there were at least two geography questions per packet on average was very nice and very fun, since I love geography.”
While the team did go to the tournament with a casual intention, they still exceeded many expectations with their 10-0 streak.
“I think we very much exceeded my expectations,” Minton said. “I did not think that we would do as well, let alone go unbeaten… It feels pretty good, since this is my first high school tournament.”
The team’s dominance also exceeded the opinions of history teacher Christina Banker, who sponsors the club.
“It’s such a wide variety of topics,” Banker said. “I didn’t know what to expect. I was amazed at how much they knew stuff.”
However, more valuable than any victory or trophy, is the community of the club.
“They encourage each other,” Banker says. “I think that’s what helps them do well and be successful.”