For the second year in a row, a Homewood-Flossmoor High School team has been selected to compete at the National Scholastic Championship quizbowl competition this weekend, June 10 and 11.
competing at the national quizbowl championships
are, from left, Lily Hamer, Ethan Bosch, Michael
Bonthron and Thomas Simon. Declan Cawley and
Nathaniel Bouchie are not pictured. (Provided photo)
For the second year in a row, a Homewood-Flossmoor High School team has been selected to compete at the National Scholastic Championship quizbowl competition this weekend, June 10 and 11.
H-F will be one of 13 Illinois teams in the national competition open to nearly 100 teams from across the country. The team qualified for NSC by taking second place at the Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association kickoff tournament hosted by H-F on Nov. 19, 2016.
Team members are graduated seniors Lily Hamer, Nathaniel Bouchie, Thomas Simon and Michael Bonthron, and juniors Declan Cawley and Ethan Bosch. Lily, Ethan and Nathaniel also were on the H-F 2016 team. The team’s head coach is Michael Sacks and assistant coach is Michael Camp, both H-F teachers.
“The students have been preparing for Nationals by practicing once a week together, reviewing questions and study materials on their own, and attending and competing in two Nationals-prep tournaments (in April at NIU, and in May at University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign),” explained Camp.
“The Scholastic Bowl season was mostly successful for us this year. Besides finishing 2nd out of 60 teams at the IHSSBCA Kickoff, we also won the SWSC Conference Tournament, won IHSA Regionals, won Masonic Sectionals and competed at Masonic State, finished 2nd in our IHSA Sectional, finished tied for 4th in the Coach’s association State tournament, and 5th at the NIU April tournament,” he added. “We finished in the top 10 in every tournament we competed in this year.”
Camp said senior Lily Hamer was named to the All-State team, both Lily and junior Declan Cawley were named to the All-Sectional team, and Lily, Declan, senior Nathaniel Bouchie and senior Thomas Simon earned All-Conference honors.
Quizbowl is an academic competition played between two teams of up to four players. Players buzz in on questions, which cover a wide range of academic topics including literature, history, science and the arts. The national competition will be held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare.
Questions are written by an experienced team of writers from the quizbowl community, many of whom are members of the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE), a non-profit, volunteer alliance of advocates and organizers for the game of high school quizbowl and related scholastic competitions, according to the PACE website.
“The tournament will be run as a series of pooled round-robins,” said Marianna Zhang, director of communications for PACE, which also runs the annual NSC. The 96 teams are grouped into preliminary pools designed to balance skill level and geographical diversity.
“Teams will play round-robins within their preliminary pool, and based on their performance, will then be seeded into two subsequent rounds of playoff brackets,” she explained.
The tournament will culminate with the top performing teams across the brackets facing off in the top ‘super playoff’ bracket to determine the 2017 NSC champion.
Select games of NSC will be posted to a liveblog on Twitter at @PACENSC and livestreamed on YouTube Live.