History Bowl kicks off the year where it ended last year

With many impressive victories under its belt from last year, the 12-member History Bowl team is seeking to meet and exceed the high expectations set by last year’s team that made it all the way to the national competition in Washington, D.C.

The team was determined through two rounds of tryouts: a written round and a buzzer round. Though an impressive 42 students tried out, only 12 made the final roster.

“I was very impressed with the turnout last year,” senior captain Nick Chow said. “I was blown away by the number of people this year. We even ran out of seats in Mr. Sheehy’s room [for tryouts].”

Though seven out of nine members of last year’s varsity team have graduated, they have been mostly replaced by a rising crop of juniors, all of whom were on the team last year: juniors Bruce Lou, Linus Lu, Ethan Ngai, Boyu Pang and Nitya Sampath. Seniors Chow, Robert Eng and Marcin Kranz round out the varsity team.

“[The number of returning players] gives the team remarkable experience,” Chow said. “All returning members have been to Nationals and did exceptionally well there. I hope they can act as role models and guide the rest of the team to do just as well as they did.”

The JV team, which is only open to underclassmen, has sophomores Daniel Eem and Nathan Ney and freshmen Bryant Chang and Mason Tian. For the first time ever, the team has freshman members — last year’s and the previous year’s JV team included only sophomores. 

“Our freshmen performed very well and even impressed the [varsity] players,” Chow said. “Last year’s JV team placed top eight in the nation, and I hope last year’s JV team can pass down their advice and tips to this year’s JV team.”

The freshmen, who competed head-to-head against sophomores in the buzzer round, want to achieve the high accomplishments expected of them.

“I feel these expectations are high, but I want to keep it up,” Tian said. “I’m going to do a lot of studying outside of practices to get out team to Nationals.”

Upperclassmen also want to go far this year.

“I’m going to read more and study more than last year,” Ngai said. “Though our junior year workload will be heavy, as long we’re willing to make the time to study, we’re going to do well.”  

The new team, with its abundance of fresh and returning talent, promises to make a deep run at competitions this year.

“I honestly think this team has the potential to surpass last year’s achievements,” Chow said. “And that’s really saying something.”