Sparta High School takes first place in academic bowl

SPARTA — The Sparta High School Academic Team came out on top of eight other teams and won the SCIL Academic Bowl Tournament on March 11 at Jefferson High School. This is the second year in a row that Sparta has won this tournament. In an Academic Bowl match, two teams take turns choosing and answering questions in five categories: language/literature, history, math, science and general knowledge. There is a time limit to answer, and if time runs out or if the team answers incorrectly, the question goes to the other team. Each question is worth 50 points. The tournament was five days long, starting Monday, March 7. The teams went against each other for the first four days in preliminary matches that decided which teams would go on to the semi-finals. The finals took place on the last day of the tournament, March 11, and decided the winner. Nine teams competed in the tournament: Sparta High School, Lenape Valley Regional High School, Wallkill Valley Regional High School, Newton High School, Pope John XXIII Regional High School, Jefferson Township High School, Hopatcong High School, High Point Regional High School and Kittatinny Regional High School. The Sparta team was dominating the scoreboard in the preliminary rounds. It quickly gained the lead and had the most points of all of the other schools for most of the tournament. At one point, Sparta had more than twice as many points as the next team. In the semi-finals, Sparta went against Newton in a close match. They tied 800-800 and the match went into sudden death. Newton answered incorrectly on a math question, Sparta answered it correctly and won the match. In the finals, Sparta went against Lenape Valley and won the match and tournament with 800 points to 700. “We also had fun,” said Sparta team member Nick Bachmann. For the final day of the competition, the seniors had an idea for the entire team to dress in suits and wear bandannas and sunglasses. It was an overcast day. “We had a lot of fun with it,” said Colby Isenberg, “We came in as the reigning champions so we decided to dress like champions.” “We certainly were the best dressed team,” said Sparta High School history teacher Ryan Lollgen, who has been the Sparta Academic Team coach for four years. Of the 15 members of the team, seven are seniors: James Crawford, Jeff Earl, Jeff Triolo, Greg Allan, Nick Bachmann, Colby Isenberg and John Irwin. There are three juniors: Andrew Frieling, Layla Samandi and Rachel Levine-Ramirez. There are three sophomores: Eryk Banatt, Aryan Falahatpisheh and Daniel Hoffman. Two are freshmen: Adam Banatt and Doug Triolo. Despite seven seniors leaving, team members believe they can maintain their performance for next year. “We’ll be fine, it’s always done well ... We’ve got a great coach, Lollgen, that does a great job organizing everything. And everybody always says the seniors set a good precedent from the year before,” said senior Colby Isenberg. “The younger kids get a very good idea of what to do from what we do and I think the younger kids are more organized this year.” By winning this tournament, the Sparta Academic Team qualifies to go to the High School National Championship Tournament, HSNCT, in Atlanta, Georgia on May 27. It hasn’t been decided whether they will participate, however. It will depend on the cost.