HS scholars compete in Science Bowl

When Teddy Roosevelt wrote, in his "Citizenship in a Republic" speech, that those who dared greatly and knew the great enthusiasms were possibly going to fail while daring greatly, he probably didn't anticipate USN's Science Bowl team of 2023. 

 

And, yet, there we were, enthusiastic to a fault — perhaps several faults. You see, in Science Bowl rules, buzzing in to answer a question before its completion can incur a penalty, and if the student answers the question without first being recognized, that incurs further penalties — known as the dreaded "blurt." In our first few matches, we enthusiastically blurted — a lot.

 

Perhaps those blurts could have been overcome against a weaker group, but we found ourselves in what the World Cup enthusiasts might have called a "group of death," with several strong teams, only two of which would advance. So, we blurted our way to a loss against Independence High to start, then rebounded with a nice win over Lausanne Collegiate School, before matching up with last year's runner-up (to their own Team 1), Farragut High School Team 2. We scored the first 36 points, and it looked like an upset was possible, but Farragut stormed back to win the match. Our match against Cookeville High School was close, but we were on the wrong side of the scoring once more, with a key penalty or two derailing a late-game comeback. 

 

After a short break, knowing if the group came down to a tiebreaker, we would need lots of points to advance to the final rounds, we absolutely crushed our last two opponents (Eagleton College & Career Academy and a homeschool team from Blount County) by a combined 262-20. We also avoided blurts — perhaps a correlation could be made by such esteemed students as ours. As Roosevelt would say in his speech, in the end we knew the triumph of high achievement.

 

Alas, it was not enough to advance, and we finished the group stage 3-3, but with a large margin of victory, overall. I am extremely proud of how the team took part, impressed by their vast knowledge on everything from calculus to plate tectonics to genetics and orbitals, and glad to have spent the past day and a half in their company. 

 

If you so desire, please feel free to congratulate captain Jonathan Chung-Bruehl '23, Sam Lustig '23, Henry Wykoff '24, Isaac Spiller '24, and Rohan Ramachandran '25 on their fine participation and performance.