Quiz Bowl wins first two tournaments, qualifies for national tournament

Quiz Bowl Club officers teach techniques and train the team members by answering quick questions during their lunch meetings.

The Saratoga Quiz Bowl Club has also expanded its team to Redwood Middle School in order to train incoming novices early on.

The school’s Quiz Bowl A team, consisting of seniors Siddharth Kamannavar, Nithya Krishna, Nilay Mishra, Adam Xu and Anthony Wang, placed first in the competitive division at California Cup (Cal Cup) 2 on Nov. 12 held at Oakland High. The team had a record of 7-1 and defeated Mira Loma twice in the finals.

After coming off a tournament win at Cal Cup 1 on Oct. 29, where the competitive team, despite missing Kamannavar and Krishna, won the competitive division, the team’s first place finish qualified them to compete in the High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT), which will be held at Atlanta in May.

Xu said the team was fairly confident it would qualify for HSNCT after its Cal Cup 1 finish.

“We won Cal Cup 1 against fairly good teams, and we only had three of our five competitive players,” Xu said. “Given our success in that tournament and previous ones, I knew we had a high chance of winning and qualifying to HSNCT.”

Last year the team placed 15th at the national tournament. This year, they hope the team places in the top 10 since the lineup is largely unchanged.

Looking ahead for the program

Prior to COVID-19, the team won the state championship multiple times and became one of the top competitive teams in the area alongside Bellarmine and Archbishop Mitty. This year, as the club is recovering from the pandemic, more competitions will now be held in person again.

“Trying to hold a Quiz Bowl competition online was a disaster,” junior officer Simarya Ahuja said. “Because there were always Internet issues and things to do with lag, this makes a real-time game like Quiz Bowl especially hard to play and maintain.”

Despite the slowed progression in competitions in recent years, Ahuja is optimistic for the club’s future as more freshman novices are joining the team. Most of the new members come from the Redwood’s Quiz Bowl team, which was created by Kamannavar last year. He initiated the middle school team to introduce the activity to players at a younger age and train them to be prepared for the high school team.

Although Kamannavar initially struggled with recruiting new members due to other commitments, he was able to successfully form a team of 35 last year, which has grown to 45 this year.

“With so many students coming in [to the Saratoga team], I can see us becoming a very dominant program in the next few years,” Kamannavar said. He estimates close to 15 experienced students join the club every school year.

During each meeting at the middle school, Kamannavar leads rounds of mock competitions while also teaching various buzzing strategies. Apart from these internal scrimmages, he also encourages students to study specific topics that interest them, giving them pointers and guidelines for what they should be looking for. The middle school team is already ranked top 100 in the nation despite its recent introduction.

“I think the biggest draw to Quiz Bowl for many students is that it rewards you for reading about anything you want,” Kamannavar said. “It holds a strong appeal for those who have curiosity but don’t have a helper to guide them around.”