Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
IRONWOOD'S "JUNIOR varsity" Quiz Bowl team took first place in GCC's eight-team secondary tournament Thursday. Team members, from left to right, are Kinley Lyons, Corissa Mattson, Guenard, Jordan Giannunzio and Isaac Aukee accept the tournament trophy from GCC Dean of Business Erik Guenard, center.
IRONWOOD - High school students from around the region took over Gogebic Community College Thursday as the college hosted its annual spring invitational Quiz Bowl tournament.
The tournament - which actually featured a sixteen-team primary tournament and an eight-team secondary tournament because of the number of teams competing - hosted 24 teams from 13 schools across the western Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin, including Bessemer, Chassell, Ironwood, Wakefield-Marenisco, Drummond, Hurley, Phillips, West Iron County, Hancock, L'Anse, Watersmeet, Houghton and Republic-Michigamme.
The 16-team tournament saw Houghton High School beat Bessemer High School, with one of Ironwood's teams beating another Bessemer squad to win the eight-team tourney.
After Bessemer's close loss to Houghton, Bessemer coach Dave Rowe praised his team's efforts, saying success in Quiz Bowl always requires some good luck.
"The team did they best it could do; they did awesome and I'm very proud of them," Rowe said. "Every one of them contributed in very meaningful ways. It was back and forth in that final match, we got within 10 (during) the first half of the last quarter. It was close; it all comes down to what they ask."
The format for GCC's Quiz Bowl featured matches made up of four quarters each, according to tournament organizer Carl Vaara. The first and fourth quarters consisted of "toss-up" questions, that either team could answer, worth 10 points each. The second quarter was the standard Quiz Bowl format, with a toss-up question that, if answered correctly, allowed the team to answer three bonus questions.
The third quarter featured a lighting round. With the exception of the bonus questions that were worth five points, all questions were worth 10 points, Vaara said.
He felt the tournament was a success, with the competition being particularly strong this year.
"In terms of quality, we probably had the best number of good teams this year. We always have good teams, but this year happened to be exceptional," said Vaara.
Among the strong competitors at the tournament were three of the four finalists - Bessemer, Ironwood and Hancock - in Public TV 13's High School Bowl Quiz Bowl tournament which concludes today in Marquette.
Thursday's tournament was one of two annual Quiz Bowl tournaments GCC hosts, with the other being in the fall.
