The Ridgefield High School Knowledge Bowl team secured its second 2A state championship on Saturday, March 11, and will once again advance on to the National Knowledge Bowl competition.
Last year, the team was crowned the national champions after a come-from-behind victory. This year, they’ll attend the event as the reigning national champions as they try to secure the title once again on Saturday, April 22 during a virtual tournament.
During the state championship, the Spudders beat out private school Charles Wright Academy and Pullman High School with a narrow margin of two points in the finals.
“They are super smart kids and they’ve worked hard to get where they are,” Coach David Jacobson stated in a news release. “You never know what will happen at competition, but they have a winning record again this year, and I think their chances are as good as any other team at nationals.”
Adam Ford, the captain of the team, has numerous superstitions he credits in part for the team’s success. Ford wears a nationals shirt and added they have never lost when he wears it.
Ford said knowledge bowl is a trivia competition, which is similar to Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy.
“You just get asked a lot of questions about a lot of different subjects,” Ford said. “Fastest to the buzzer gets to say what they think first.”
Jacobson said a lot of teamwork is involved in the competitions. The students are asked to answer questions in a variety of topics like math, history, arts, literature and science. Three separate teams of four compete against one another as someone reads the randomized questions. Teams have 14 seconds to communicate with their members in order to buzz in first to answer the questions.
Each of the four Knowledge Bowl members have a specific topic they focus on. Ford’s speciality is history, Stuart Swingruber focuses on science, and Emi Newell takes on the math questions along with arts and music, while James Haddix focuses on literature.
During a team practice on Wednesday, March 22, the students worked together to answer almost every question they were asked.
The questions are not categorized like the popular TV game show Jeopardy and certain questions tend to be more advanced, so sometimes a question can go unanswered by the teams competing.
Ford said having only 14 seconds for each question makes solving high level math problems difficult. Swingruber added a question about the different categories of fog at the state championship tournament went unanswered by the teams who competed.
The Ridgefield Knowledge Bowl thanked the community for its support. A $1,500 donation from the Ridgefield Lions Club, along with a $5,000 grant from the Ridgefield Public Schools Foundation will fund their trips to both the National Knowledge Bowl and the National Academic Quiz Tournament in Atlanta.
“It’s really amazing to see the community come together and support us,” Ford said. “It fills my heart with a feeling of love.”
Newell added they received congratulations from all of their teachers following the state championship win.
“Our teachers are great for helping us grow and learn as students and then our community to go way and well beyond and above the call of duty to come and support a team of academics, as opposed to the traditional sports people like to give props to, goes to show just how special our community is here at Ridgefield,” Ford said.
Along with coaching multiple high school Knowledge Bowl teams, Jacobson oversees six middle school teams in the Ridgefield School District.
The high school team runs practices for the middle school teams on a weekly basis, Jacobson said. He noted the younger students look up to the high schoolers who help them.
