McLean Quiz Bowl, 2023-24 VHSL scholastic champions, has kicked off the school year with a bang as it recently participated in two tournaments, the Cavalier Classic held at the University of Virginia on Sept. 28 and the Centennial Invitational in Maryland on Oct 13.
“We all played quite well and were very competitive,” junior Edward Burrows said. “Our B-team also did pretty well in both tournaments. We qualified both of our teams for nationals with really high placements.”
Behind each victory is hours of rigorous preparation, which ranges from mock competitions during after-school meetings to actually composing questions for school events like trivia night, the first of which will happen in November.
“On Mondays and Tuesdays, we have practices where we read questions [and] figure out where our areas of weakness are to study at home,” senior co-captain Ryan McKenzie said. “On Mondays, we do organized scrimmages where we simulate match performance.”
One of the unique qualities of quiz bowl is the way niches are created for all people on the team to participate, facilitating an environment that has individual emphasis but is also dependent on teamwork in order to achieve victory.
“Individually, [we] work on our own subjects,” McKenzie said. “Then at practices, we get experience with gameplay and interacting with each other and get to work together.”
Aside from group practices, team members practice for competitions by reading up on material specific to their area of expertise on their own time. Trivia questions include a wide range of topics, everything from architecture and mythology to classical music and biology, so it is crucial that players remain well versed in their chosen areas.
“I’m a musician, so a lot of the knowledge just came to me through my music education, [and] my parents really love art, so I’ve been going to a lot of art museums since I was a kid,” senior co-captain Angelika Tzioumis said. “I’ve absorbed that knowledge, and I refresh that knowledge through trivia cards or books.”
In addition to preparing for tournaments, the team is also in the process of planning a trivia night scheduled for November to be hosted at McLean, the exact date still to be determined.
“We’re starting to write questions for trivia night, but that’s not really practice [for us],” Burrows said. “[Typically] we read questions from previous tournaments, from packets that are posted online. Those have toss-ups and bonuses, which are the individual and team directed responses, respectively.”
Throughout the year, the Highlanders will continue to attend tournaments, with the next one taking place in December. The season will culminate with the National tournament in Atlanta in May, for which the team has already qualified.
“[As a team], we have really good cohesion. We work together well on the cooperative parts of Quiz Bowl, which are the bonuses. You can confer as a team to give a team-directed answer as opposed to an individual-directed answer. That’s really what helps us,” Burrows said.
In the immediate future, McLean Quiz Bowl will attend the Virginia Commonwealth University Winter XV tournament on Dec 7. With a combination of speed and accuracy, developed by weeks of practice, the team hopes to take home more victories and continue the state-winning legacy.
“Similar to a sports team, [we try] to play to everyone’s strengths,” McKenzie said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how we can expand things beyond just going to tournaments: working more events and preparing for states.”
