St. Raymond Quiz Bowl team celebrates recent victories
The St. Raymond School Quiz Bowl Team recently added another victory in the Seventh Grade Tournament at St. Viator, giving the group of 14 seventh- and eighth-graders four first-place finishes this season. In addition to winning the St. Viator match, the team won the Notre Dame High School Tournament again this year, as well as the St. Benedict Tournament and the standard division of the Barrington Invitational Tournament.
The team took second place in the St. Viator Eighth Grade Tournament, fourth place at the St. Mary of Visitation Tournament in Milwaukee, and sixth place at the Northwestern University Middle School Tournament where 30 teams competed.
“This has been a very talented, energetic and enjoyable team to coach,” said Denise Kreb, St. Raymond Quiz Bowl Team coach, who is in her sixth year leading the students. “The eighth-graders have clearly been the leaders and work together extremely well. It is truly a team effort. The seventh-graders are starting to come into their own now with the win at St. Viator. I think they are ready to take over being the leaders next year.”
Kreb explained that while some schools’ teams include sixth-graders, St. Raymond only competes with seventh- and eighth-graders. She said St. Raymond plays against only Catholic schools at the St. Viator tournament and a mix of public and private schools at the other tournaments. She noted that the Notre Dame and St. Benedict tournaments are comprised primarily of Catholic schools, while the Barrington, St. Mary and Northwestern tournaments feature predominantly public schools or other private, non-Catholic schools.
“We practice once per week during the junior high lunch/recess period,” said Kreb. “The students practice using the buzzer system as they get used to the type of questions and format of the tournament. This can vary slightly from tournament to tournament. We then also review some of the content areas — math, social studies, science, English and literature, current events, pop culture, fine arts. The students break into teams and practice competing against each other.”
Kreb explained that tournaments are played with either four or five students per team playing at a time. She said that the number of questions per round can vary from 16-20. “All rounds have tossup questions followed by bonus questions,” she said. “Some tournaments are played in a round-robin fashion, some break into pools and then reseed in the afternoon, and some tournaments have you play only a small set of the other teams and placing is based solely on total points scored in the games you played. It is very similar to Jeopardy, except with teams. It is very important to be fast on the buzzer.”
For information, call (847) 253-8555 or visit www.st-raymond.org.
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