IHS Academic Challenge went to states in Columbus, Ohio, on May 2nd at Olentangy Berlin High School and placed in the top eight for Division II in the state of Ohio.
The IHS students who are a part of the Academic Challenge team are seniors Tatiana Randjelovic, Matthew Shamblen, and Mes Sheehan, juniors Carmen Chen and Ben Cober, and freshman Quincy Carlisle.
Before the Academic Challenge went to states, they had achieved high placements in previous Academic Challenge tournaments, such as achieving first at the Sugar Valley Conference, taking second at the Painesville Riverside tournament, and qualifying for regionals with these achievements. In the end, they were able to qualify for the state tournament by getting first in Solon, where the regional took place.
Right before the IHS Academic Challenge went to states, Mr. Bill McGuinness, the academic challenge advisor and coach, explained: “They’re very calm, and even if we have a match that we wind up losing, everyone is pretty steady, nobody panics, and they just get right back there.” The biggest problem McGuinness thought the team was going to face was a tough category where the team may not have much knowledge of the category. With the Academic Challenge team having done well in other events, they were ready to take on the challenge of going to states.
The tournament consisted of four events per round, each event had a different set of rules. Some events had simple ground rules that were freer in how you answered the questions, while some other events had stricter ways you had to answer the questions. When asked about events, Academic Challenge member Carlisle said, “My favorite one to do was alphabet soup. You get like ten different questions, and all of the answers have to start with the same letter. And it’s really dumb, but it’s really fun.”
