In their second-to-last match at the Georgetown University Fall Tournament, the GDS Quiz Bowl team rebounded from a shaky start against St. Andrews. After two missed questions, sophomore Haughton Neppl correctly identified the biblical city of Sodom, igniting a winning streak. The team finished with a commanding 280–150 victory and second place in the tournament.
The team competitors, consisting of Neppl, senior Ben Hellman, juniors Alec Donath and Henry Fragale and sophomore Nadia Bandy, competed against 11 other high school teams from across the DMV. The GDS team ended the tournament with nine wins and two losses.
Quiz Bowl rounds are played between two teams using a buzzer system to answer questions. The Fall Tournament uses the tossup format, in which both teams compete for the chance to answer a question by buzzing in. The team that successfully answers the tossup has up to three bonus questions read to them, which the other team cannot answer. Values for tossups and bonuses can vary but are usually 10 and 30 points for correct answers respectively.
“I naturally have a lot of interest in specific subjects,” Neppl said. “So I feel like Quiz Bowl gives me a great way to dive into them, and to find new areas I can look into.”
The GDS Quiz Bowl team scored an average of 442.3 points per game (PPG), which was 8.7 points higher than the first-place team, McLean A. They also had a win percentage of 81.8%.
“The GDS team is doing great,” Hellman said. “We’re 24th in the country, we have a great middle-school program, we’ve been going to a lot of tournaments and have been just generally performing well.”
The tournament, held on Nov. 17, took place in Georgetown University’s International Culture Center, where the team competed from 9 a.m. in the morning to 6 p.m. in the evening.
“You learn a lot of weird information that sticks with you,” Donath said. “Random places, random stories—I feel like I’ve learned a lot of stuff that’s not necessarily useful, but it’s still interesting to learn more and more.”
“Being able to know a lot of things in a lot of categories is really, really satisfying,” Hellman said. “We put in a lot of work.”
College counselor Shawn Miller serves as one of the two faculty advisors for the Quiz Bowl club and chaperoned the GDS team at Saturday’s tournament.
The GDS Quiz Bowl team will attend the annual High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT) in Atlanta, Georgia, from May 23 to 25, after finishing in the top 15% at several tournaments this year.
“I think Quiz Bowl has a reputation for being a little esoteric,” Hellman said. “But, it’s a group of people that are committed, which is why we can always get people for tournaments.”
Hellman has competed in Quiz Bowl for four years, starting in freshman year, and is the head of the club this year.
“I would say a lot more people should be doing it,” Hellman said. “It’s something that I think GDS would be a great community for.”