Quick! You have 10 seconds to answer this question: What is the name of the study of flags?

Does that seem hard? Random? Nearly impossible? Well, that is what the Scholars Bowl students have to deal with many times, through many rounds while competing on answering it the fastest. (The answer is vexillology)

Scholars Bowl is competitive trivia based on school curriculum where the students have to correctly answer the questions asked before the other team, getting 10 points for their correct answers.

The Topeka High Scholars Bowl team won the Northern Heights Scholars Bowl Varsity Tournament on Oct. 26, going 9-0 against other teams. It was their first tournament win in 6 years.

The six students who participated were Tristan McCulloch, Alexia Hercules, Steven Desch, George Kluczykowski, James Peck, an Nate Routsong.

“It was pretty crazy, I mean, being on the Scholars Bowl team, we’re not used to winning,” Tristan McCulloch said. “It’s like winning anything else, you get a rush.”

Just like any other sport, momentum and teamwork is a big deal, and this is how they found success.

“We would get questions right early on in the matches, building up steam and momentum throughout the competition,” McCulloch said. “And everybody performed very well on their own, contributing to the win by answering questions in their own specialty — it showed how well our team composition was. While there was a little bit of overlap, which is good, no one was left just sitting there while everyone else was answering questions.”

The performance is one the team won’t forget; Mr. Smith, the Scholars Bowl coach and history teacher said, “We wouldn’t be nearly as good at Scholars Bowl, except that they have had such talented teachers who give so much of themselves so that our students can learn and succeed.”

A win for our Scholars Bowl team is a win not just for the Scholars Bowl team, but also for our school’s academics, and our staff.