By Claire Regenstreif
Theme Editor
Team O’Brien, comprised of seniors Matt O’Brien, Jack Allen, Jack Howorth and Emily Petillon, was defeated 330 to 240 by Team Kelleher in the 2015 Scholar Quiz finals.
O’Brien, Allen and Howorth have been a Scholar Quiz team since sixth grade; according to O’Brien, Petillon joined their sophomore year. They went into Scholar Quiz with high hopes of winning, but they primarily wanted to compete again since they have been a team for so long.
“We were all really good friends before, and this has just brought us closer,” O’Brien said. “It’s been a lot of fun playing together. We have had a lot of good laughs throughout this process.”
According to Howorth, each of the team members specialized in certain categories: Howorth in history and popular culture; Allen in sports, history, and pop culture; Petillon in literature, history and film; and O’Brien in all subjects other than sports.
“I think we got this far because we have been doing this together for so long, so we all work well together,” Allen said. “We all have specific strengths, good chemistry and, on top of that, we have a lot of heart.”
According to Team O’Brien, it felt it had lost before the outcome was even reported since the freshmen on the other team seemed to know everything. Even though Team O’Brien had a team comprised of only seniors, Team Kelleher was better at flagging and quickly answering the random questions that no one else knew.
“I think Tommy Kelleher’s fast flagging was what ruined us,” Petillon said. “Their freshmen were ridiculously good.”
According to O’Brien, they went into Scholar Quiz with no preparation and made it to the finals. Most of the questions were on topics that they previously knew from school and did not need to prepare for. Being older than some of the players on the other team helped them because they had learned about many of the topics they had been asked during Scholar Quiz.
“I don’t think we could’ve done much to get better,” O’Brien said. “You can’t really cram for Scholar Quiz; it’s stuff that you’ve learned over the years, and either you know it or you don’t. Our main goal was to just play our best and have fun because we all really enjoy competing in Scholar Quiz.”
According to Petillon, the team was challenged by the freshmen’s ability to think and act quickly right as the questions were being asked by math teacher Daniel Debevec.
“We got a little complacent in the middle when we found out how close our scores were, but we knew more toward the end,” Allen said. “They were by far one of the most challenging opponents we had faced this year, but in spite of that, all we really wanted was to have fun.”
Team O’Brien did not jump at too many questions it didn’t know, and its chemistry caused it to work well together. The final match was the closest match it had ever competed in during Scholar Quiz. According to Team O’Brien, Team Kelleher was the most difficult team it had ever played throughout this year’s tournament because it was so versatile.
“We wanted to get far in Scholar Quiz just so we could play more games,” O’Brien said. “We just had a team of well-rounded, smart players who happened to know a lot of valuable stuff.”
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