Pencils scratching and sighs of frustration echoed across history teacher Matt Torrens’ classroom during tutorial on Sept. 30, as dozens of students sat taking a 60-question history test to qualify for the school’s History Bowl team.
In consecutive years, the school’s prodigious History Bowl team has made it to nationals in Washington, D.C., and last year the varsity team went on to win first place while the junior varsity team placed second.
This year the team consists of 15 members on varsity and 12 members on JV.
The team tried to keep the groups smaller this year as only four to six people compete at a time, according to one of the team’s captains, junior Bryant Chang. By having fewer participants, the team is hoping to have a few people specialize on certain topics so there will be more information at hand.
Last year the team was led by alumnus Bruce Lou, the No. 1 ranked history, U.S. and Quiz Bee player in the nation. The group this year is hoping to make a name for themselves.
“The only real way to make up for [this] great [loss] is to just practice harder and increase our individual efforts to overcome this problem,” senior captain Daniel Eem said.
The team is especially looking to excel by attending more tournaments in the Quiz Bowl category.
“Studying Quiz Bowl creates the balance we need to keep up with the other [strong] History Bowl [teams] which often times also have very strong Quiz Bowl teams,” junior captain Mason Tian said. “The best teams have deep knowledge in history and also exposure to other subjects.”
Although the team is newly formed, it is beginning a rigorous training schedule.
The team will have mandatory weekly practices, constant repetition of history packets and a belief that everyone will do his or her duty in contributing to the team, Eem said. These are all qualities that help team to the national finals.
Despite losing the nation’s best player to graduation, they think they can make a return to Washington, D.C., and defend their title
“We are not the only team that lost key players, so I guess we will see how we do this year,” Tian said.