The Quiz Bowl team placed third in pool play but was unable to advance to semifinals at the Saint James tournament on Tuesday, Jan. 26.

The team won six out of nine rounds. After losing to Basehor-Linwood, the team was unable to advance to semifinals.

“I feel like as a team we performed strongly; however, the type of questions and the competition made it difficult for our team to thrive,” senior Jordan Wootton said.

Senior Karla Kim said the meet was particularly difficult because of the lengthy questions. Incorrect interruptions cost the team 20 points against Emporia for four interruptions. The team lost 40-25 to Emporia. 

“At most meets, the questions are very brief — you either know it or you don’t,” Kim said. “But at Saint James, questions are really long, so they are really confusing for us because they give you all this extra information. So you think it’s going to go one way, but it doesn’t, so you’re basically punished for interrupting.”

Although the team did lose points due to confusion with the questions, Kim was happy with her team members for working together.

“A lot of times in Quiz Bowl there are one or two kids that are super smart who know everything and they buzz all the time,” Kim said. At this meet, it was much more of a team effort.”

Wootton agreed that every player had a strength to bring to the table.

“We knew a decent amount about in every subject, yet we either lacked the confidence in ourselves to buzz or the communication to talk about it in the short time we had,” Wooten said.

Despite the outcome of this meet, Kim is happy with the season thus far.

“We didn’t make it into finals, which was disappointing, [but] overall I think we did well in our team. We’ve been doing really well throughout the entire season,” senior Karla Kim said. “Even if we didn’t bring home medals, it’s more about improving the team as a whole.”

The quiz bowl team will be in action next at Kaw Valley League on Wednesday, Feb. 3 at home.