The East categories team doesn’t have code names, bro tanks or secret handshakes. What they do have are the bragging rights of winning the 2012 Categories Tournament, or “Nationals” as the students like to call it.
Under the first year direction of science teacher Nathan Southwick, the team met once a week throughout the year in his classroom. Their practices would rotate off with research practices one week, where they would find information on different topics like presidents, capitals and scientists, and quizzing practices the next.
“Mr. Southwick finds some questions online and we just have fun and do trivia,” sophomore Brian Phillips said.
The team competed with the other Shawnee Mission School District (SMSD) schools and the Blue Valley schools. Because these are the only school districts that have a categories team, their regular season consisted of only four matches. East’s categories team went 3-1, losing only to Blue Valley West (BVW). They did however, tie with BVW with percentage of correct answers, 61%.
“We’ve had some games that have come down to the wire,” Phillips said. “But we won the championship for that speaks for itself.”
Each dual against an opposing team consists of two rounds. During the first round, a question is directed to one team. If they don’t get it right it goes to the opposing team for a “steal”. After a quick break, the second round, or the “Lightning Round” begins. Each question is worth a point.
“The second round is where things get a little more exciting because anybody can buzz in for any question,” Southwick said. “Whoever has the highest score [after both rounds] wins.”
The top eight teams qualified for regionals and East was second place. The regional matches were played over the course of two weekends. East went up against Blue Valley High School in the first round and advanced to play in the finals against BVW, the team that had beaten them during regular season.
Students Matt Williamson, Mark Towster, Polly Haun, Aidan Conley and Brian Phillips all participated in the final match, which was televised. East won the first round with a score of 17-10 and won the second round 27-19. The team will be losing seniors Mark Towster and Aidan Conley but are still expecting a successful season next year.
“I expect that we will have a very strong team next year,” Southwick said. “We are going to do a lot of recruiting and hopefully we’ll get some younger people and we get them going early on so that we can keep winning every year.”
The category matches can be viewed on the SMSD TV channel on April 18, 20, 23, 25, 27 and can be viewed here.
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