On Tuesday, April 19, East Noble’s Academic Super Bowl team headed to Hamilton High School for its third and final competition: the state qualifier. The team’s members, who stole the show at the NE8 Conference back in March, went in with high expectations of themselves. They had spent the past four months prepping for this single day, and although they had an enjoyable night with a few small victories, their performance, it seems, just wasn’t enough.

“It was fun yet disappointing,” said junior Brian Snow, a member of the Bowl’s Math team, Science team, and Interdisciplinary team.

The Academic Super Bowl consists of six teams: English, Science, Fine Arts, Social Studies, Math, and Interdisciplinary—a combination of the previous five. Each team sits at a table and answers 25 multiple choice questions as they are read, one at a time, by the emcee.

Although Snow was unsatisfied with the night’s overall turn-out, he was on one of the two teams that actually placed first and beat DeKalb—East Noble’s only rival in its class. The Science team managed to get an 18/25, the highest score made by an EN team that night. It still came four points short from qualifying for State, though, but the team enjoyed a nice victory against DeKalb nonetheless.

“It was our best competition of the season!” said junior Kristin Baermann, who’s on the Science team with captain Phillip Phan, Brian Snow, and Zarna Patel.

The English team also claimed some blue ribbons with a score of 13/25, which surpassed or tied with the scores of the six other schools present. Again, the team did not manage to qualify for the State competition on May 7th, but it emerged as the only EN team to place first at both the NE8 Conference and the state qualifier. Sage Halsey, Jenna Boese, Michael Lehman, and team captain Alyssa Yoquelet definitely appreciated the win.

The scores for the four remaining teams are as follows:

Fine Arts: 10/25 – Second to DeKalb’s 16/25
Social Studies: 15/25 – Second to DeKalb’s 15/25 (tie-breaker)
Math: 16/25 – Second to DeKalb’s 17/25
Interdisciplinary: 16/25 – Second to DeKalb’s 21/25

While the teams might not have made it to State, the night was not defined by their losses. The teams can rest assured that they did their best and worked significantly harder than they had in years past. They put in admirable effort and managed to enjoy each other’s company at the same time. The competition offered a night of laughs and comradery, which even continued with a lively card game of Mafia on the bus ride home.

“I really enjoyed the opportunity to do this and compete here tonight,” said junior Lief Brandgard of the Fine Arts team, “but it was very disappointing that after all the hard work the Fine Arts team had put in, we didn’t manage to make it to State. Maybe next year?”