Barrington High School wins national Scholastic Bowl

On the weekend of Saturday, May 29, Barrington High School joined 223 of the top high school quiz bowl teams online for the 2021 High School National Championship Tournament to determine who was the best.

The 2021 edition of the High School National Championship Tournament was contested entirely through Zoom conferences, and brought together teams from four countries and 32 states to compete over two days of matches.

Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of four students. It is the national version of the game that is often locally called Scholastic Bowl.

Quiz bowl teams use buzzers to answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports and popular culture.

The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.

The Barrington team was captained by Liam Starnes, who was joined by Michael Karpov, Rohan Kher, Timothy Price and Charles Young. The team was coached by Jeffrey Price.

Barrington was one of 12 Illinois teams competing at the national championship.

Barrington finished the preliminary rounds with a 7-1 record, which qualified them for the playoffs.

Barrington defeated Mira Loma from Sacramento, California, by the narrow margin of 330-315 during round 12; defeated Arcadia from California 305-295 during round 18; and defeated Thomas Jefferson Science & Tech A from Alexandria, Virginia, 315-310 during round 19.

After 18 grueling games, Barrington emerged victorious, the very best among the 224 teams in the field.

National Academic Quiz Tournaments, founded in 1996, organizes the premier middle school, high school, and college quiz bowl championships in North America.

In addition to its national championships, National Academic Quiz Tournaments provides questions to invitational tournaments, league championships, and television shows throughout the year.

For information, visit www.naqt.com.