History Bowl: Saratoga topples reigning national champion at home tournament

Everything came down to the last question of the final round of the History Bowl tournament on Jan. 26. The moderator started reading the question: “A retiarius is….”

Junior Bruce Lou knew the answer right away. He paused for just a moment, though, seized with fear. Then he buzzed in with the correct answer: a gladiator.

“I hesitated,” Lou said. “I knew it, but I was so scared. I hesitated for half a second before finally buzzing in, and I got it right.”

With that answer, the varsity History Bowl team triumphed over the national champion team, Bellarmine A, at a home tournament — a major achievement. The Bellarmine team is comprised solely of senior Sameer Rai, who went undefeated at the National History Bowl tournament last year in Washington, D.C.

A total of 17 varsity teams and nine JV teams participated in this year’s tournament, hosted at SHS. Saratoga won first in the Varsity Bowl, which is a team competition, JV Bowl and JV Bee, which is the individual competition, but lost to Rai in the Varsity Bee, also an individual competition.

The Varsity A team is comprised of senior captain Nick Chow and juniors Bruce Lou, Ethan Ngai and Nitya Sampath.

According to Lou, the team members were somewhat intimidated this year by the prospect of facing Rai, since he beat Saratoga’s Varsity A team last year by a large margin.

“It was not pretty, the way he beat [the A team],” Lou said. “But this year, we actually beat him.”

Though Rai took an early lead, Lou said that Saratoga began to gain momentum during the fourth quarter of the tournament. The team won the tournament against Rai, 320 to 280.

According to Chow, Lou’s knack for historical facts and “ridiculous buzz” at the end were what ultimately led to the team’s success.

“This year we did the unthinkable and actually beat [Rai],” Chow said. “Really, our team was carried through the match by the genius of Bruce.”

Lou said the victory depended upon more than simply having a strong knowledge of history; speed and confidence were also key factors during the tournament.

“Half the questions were determined by buzzing speed,” Lou said. “Another good skill is knowing whether you are sure in your answer. If you get it wrong, not only are you screwing yourself over, but you’re also screwing your entire team over.”

Although the History Bowl team won at the Northern California Fall Regional Tournament and individual competition on Dec. 7, the team nervously anticipated facing Rai in this year’s home tournament.

Chow said that the “legends” surrounding Rai’s previous domination against Saratoga last year made the victory against him even sweeter.

“Last year, we watched him singlehandedly destroy the second best team in the nation by himself at nationals,” Chow said. “There is a certain aura of legend around [Rai], so when we finally beat him, it was indescribable … I started tearing up.”