Garrettsville – The James A. Garfield High School Quiz Masters competed at the national tournament this past weekend. The Quiz Bowl team, coached by Iva Walker, traveled to the Hyatt Regency near the Chicago O’Hare airport for the event. Competition consisted of 10 preliminary seeding games on Saturday and a double elimination tournament on Sunday. The Quiz Masters made it to the semifinals through the losers bracket, ultimately placing 4th out of 77 teams with a 15-2 overall record on the weekend. Seniors Jack Rado, Cameron Edwards, and Rene Fenshaw represented the team along with 8th grade Chloe Heasley. Rado scored the most points in the preliminary matches, thus earning him the top individual scorer award.
Teams from all over the country traveled to Chicagoland for the annual event, the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament, aka SSNCT. Amongst the field of teams included reigning champions Glasgow (KY), and perennial powers Fair Grove (MO) and Southwestern (IL). Some new teams joined the mix, including Woodland (CT) and Houston (MO). The Quiz Masters, this year’s small school state champs, joined 13 other Ohio schools at the tournament. This was all in the traditional public schools division, and an open division also had its own tournament of 55 private and charter schools going on at the same time.
The Quiz Masters knew going into the competition it would be tough to top their success from last year, when they got third overall and first in the Very Small School division. But, they went in determined as always to do their best and leave it all out there. They went 10-0 on the first day for the second straight year, earning them the third seed for the tournament on Sunday. Much like 2022, they avenged an early loss in the winner’s bracket, this time to West Point (AL). A run of playing three straight Ohio teams (Benjamin Logan, Upper Sandusky, and Batavia) after that led them to a matchup with Woodland and the second ranked individual scorer for the seminal, which was too much to handle for the Quiz Masters, and their run concluded. Woodland went on to finish third, Southwestern snagged second, and Fair Grove won the national championship convincingly.
The Quiz Masters still have a lot to be proud of. They had great success the last two seasons, and built the program up to national status. Team achievements from the last two years include: 2022 and 2023 Portage League champs, 2022 Very Small School State and National champs, 2023 Very Small School and Small School State Champs, 2022 SSNCT third place, 2023 SSNCT fourth place, 2023 Very Small School Nationals third place.
