HOMER — Team work is not only important in athletics. Just ask members of the Heritage Middle School Quiz Bowl Team.
Sponsor-Coach Justin Lee credits the team’s ability to work together for its success.
The Hawks competed in Quiz Bowl semifinals during the weekend and qualified to compete in the middle school national tournament on Saturday against 15 teams from across the U.S.
Team members are Kadn White, Atticus Ashbrook, Colby Schrock, Christian Paul and Joao Bega.
Lee said the members have a diverse range of knowledge, which makes for a strong unit. If four members of the team don’t know an answer, there’s a good chance a fifth will.
“They’re all academically gifted,” Lee said.
“For a couple of them, this is probably their biggest motivator, not an A or a B. A couple of the kids love the challenge of the game. A couple love the odd little pockets of knowledge.”
Qualifying teams will compete virtually for the national title in the single-elimination tournament.
Lee got an idea that this team was pretty good when it won a six-team online virtual science tournament through the National Academic Competition. Three of those teams were from other countries.
That victory qualified Heritage to compete in last weekend’s semifinals.
Heritage finished that competition with a 4-2 record. Every team that had at least four wins advanced to nationals.
The team’s first match Saturday is against a No. 1 seed, Life Way Academy of Kansas, a private school.
As evidence of the Heritage team’s broad base of knowledge, Lee said one player is “surprisingly strong in ’80s television.”
“They all have pretty good video game knowledge. Those questions come up. It’s really all over the map.”
Last weekend, questions included ranging from current political figures all the way back to ragtime piano players.
“That’s the fun of it,” Lee said of the wide range of questions.
The Heritage team has not been resting on its laurels. They have been going through a 90-minute practice every day this week.
“We talk about the categories and the questions we had — questions writers tend to build off what they know,” Lee said.
“We saw a lot of repetition in biological sciences, American political leaders, language arts and grammar.
The team also made a list of things they expect to hear but didn’t last weekend.
For instance, there were no questions on spelling or Greek mythology, so does that mean the quizmasters will add some of those questions this time around?
This marks the first time Heritage has participated in the series. It usually sticks to the state tournament.
Speaking of the team aspect of the squad, Lee noted, “This team just gets along really well. They don’t tear other down. They build each other up.”
Comprising the Heritage squad are one freshman (White) and one seventh-grader (Bega), with the rest being eighth-graders.