Saratoga rallies to triple crown at tournament

The History Bowl team, confident and heavily favored to win the March 22 Northern History Bowl Championships, once again proved its status as a powerhouse team by winning the tournament and becoming the first varsity triple crown winner — the winner of all three regional tournaments — in the history of the competitions.

This victory was a marked contrast with just two years ago, when the team was just getting started and barely made it into the top half of the field.

 “I think last year was the year in which we really started making huge gains,” junior Ethan Ngai said. “Since then we’ve built our way up to a fearsome reputation.”

The varsity A team, consisting of Ngai, juniors Bruce Lou and Nitya Sampath and senior captain Nick Chow, managed to win seven rounds in a row, and each single round by a margin of 100 points or more.

“I thought we would do pretty well, but I didn’t expect the final rounds to be so easy,” Sampath said.

Sampath, who is a self-described Anglophile and the team’s expert on all things Britain, said that the close-knit team dynamic helped greatly in propelling the Falcons to victory.

“We’ve spent all of last year together and all of this year together,” Sampath said. “We trust each other to answer questions.”

Chow stressed the importance of the closeness of the team.

“I’ve seen people open up in practice in ways they’ve never opened up outside,” Chow said. “We tell terrible jokes, and so much more. I couldn’t have survived junior year without History Bowl to give me sanctuary.”

One of the “jokes” that Chow mentioned was Ethan Ngai’s hatred of Greeks that has become a running gag within the team.

“[Ethan] believes that he is an ancient Persian, and as such, he hates anything having to do with Greece,” Chow explained. “For those non-history buffs, that’s because the Greeks managed to defeat the Persians in the Persian Wars. Ethan hates them to such an extent that he refers to Greece as ‘the G-word.’”

Chow also wants to dispel the myth that History Bowl is merely memorization of facts, dates and people.

“Many players do memorize trigger words — ’stock clues’ in History Bowl lingo — but that only gets you to a certain level of proficiency,” Chow said. “It’s cliché, but history really is a puzzle, and if you memorize facts, you’ll never be able to see the entire puzzle. Context is important in History Bowl.”

Ngai believes that the source of the team’s victories comes from the devotion of its members.

“Though we have fun during practices, we all are pretty serious about [competing],” Ngai said. 

Although all members of the team are serious about their game, Chow noted the lack of internal competition.

“There’s no jockeying for History Bowl positions,” Chow said. “Unlike in a lot of other teams, the interests of the team are the interests of the members.”

The team looks to have a promising Nationals run, which will be on April 26 and 27 in Washington, D.C. The team has attended twice in the past, with a quarterfinal finish last year.   

“Though we did very well last tournament, I think we can up our game quite a bit,” Ngai said. “I hope we can continue being a powerhouse team.”