Science Bowl teams fall short of last year’s success

The two Science Bowl teams competed at the annual Regional Department of Energy (DOE) Science Bowl at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) on Feb. 9. Both teams lost to two other schools in their respective brackets and were thus unable to advance to the playoff round.

Team A, composed of seniors Amanda Chow and Justin Chiang and juniors Nolan Chen, Nick Chow and Robert Eng, competed against Los Gatos, Lynbrook, Harker and Stanford Online High School. This year’s competition featured 30 teams instead of the usual 24, and the 30 teams were divided into five brackets of six teams each. Only the top two teams from each bracket in the round robin round could advance to the next round.

“Our luck could have gone better since we were placed into a bracket with two other highly competitive teams, Lynbrook and Harker,” Eng said.

They lost to Lynbrook and Harker, both teams that advanced. Harker went on to place second behind Bellarmine in the competition. Despite not advancing to the playoff rounds as last year's team that had won third place did, team members still felt proud of their performance.

“I believe we reached our potential as a team and truly interacted positively among ourselves better than certain other teams we played against,” Eng said.

Amanda Chow noted that one of the team's greatest weaknesses was hesitating to buzz in for questions. However, she also believed that the team worked well together.

“We complemented each other in terms of strengths,” she said. “We have people specialized in everything; overall we’re able to cover every topic.”

Team B, with seniors Nikki Bedekar, Michael Lee and Aasim Naqvi and sophomores Noah Jung and Shivaram Yellamilli challenged Menlo, Hillsdale and Lynbrook and Harker’s second teams. They finished third in their bracket after losses to Menlo and Lynbrook and were unable to advance as well.

The teams will lose half of their members to graduation this year, but remaining members are still optimistic.

“Next year, a greater involvement and development of underclassmen would solidify and enhance the team for future posterity,” Eng said.