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Neighbors | Zack Shively.Boardman High School Quiz Bowl team won the Mahoning Quizbowl Tournament on Feb. 24 for the fourth straight year. The team has won the Mahoning League four years in a row. Additionally, the have an unbeaten streak that started in 2014.
By ZACK SHIVELY
The Boardman High School Quiz Bowl team continued their undisputed streak in the Mahoning Quizbowl Tournament on Feb. 24.
The team had a streak of 56 unbeaten matches with 54 wins and two ties going into the tournament. They have won both the Mahoning League and Mahoning Quizbowl Tournament the last four years, starting in 2015.
Boardman High School English teacher Randy Nord coaches the team. She said the team practices at weekly meetings to continue bolstering the students’ wide knowledge base and to work on the speed in which they answer. She enjoys the quiz bowl because it places value on academic strength.
The high school also had a single player, Pranav Padmanabhan, recognized for his stand-out performance in his quiz bowl career. Padmanabhan won the Mahoning League’s 2018 Player of the Year award, an accolade he has won in the past two seasons as well. He scored 1,430 points during the season, with an average of 143 a match.
Twenty-six teams competed in the tournament. Each team went head-to-head with another quiz team. Each team had four members that answered questions from a moderator. The players pressed a button on a buzzer, similar to a game show, to get the chance to answer. These “toss up” questions allowed for either team to answer.
After buzzing in and correctly answering a question, the moderator gave an additional three bonus questions to the team that answered the initial toss up question. The bonus questions were about the same topic. For example, Boardman correctly answered a question about John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,“ which led to three more questions about the work and author.
A single match had 20 toss up questions, each with three additional questions. The questions covered a variety of topics, from math, sports, literature and more. The same match included questions about a math equation, the geography of Canada and popular singers.
The team will compete at the national tournament in Atlanta on May 25-27. They will also compete in a state-wide competition.