Knowledge Bowl season ends at regionals

ROYAL CITY — The Knowledge Bowl season for Royal High School ended last week at the regional tournament, but coach Dr. Eric Carlson is excited about the future.

“We had the youngest team there,” he said. “We didn’t have any seniors.”

Zillah and Cle Elum, both of which advanced to state, were senior-dominated. Carlson said his students knew the answers but were slow to activate the buzzer.

At regionals, Royal competed in the 1A division against Zillah, Cle Elum, and Highland for a chance to advance to state. The Knights finished fourth.

The meet consisted of four rounds. First was a written round in which all six team members worked together on a written multiple choice test of 60 questions.

After the written round, the 1A teams played three head-to-head oral rounds of 45 questions against each of the other teams. A reader posed the question, and teams buzzed in when they felt they could answer.

“Oral rounds are not just about knowing the answer, but about being quick on the buzzer,” Carlson said.

The points from each oral round were added to the scores from the written round, with the top two total scores advancing to state.

The goal in an oral round is not to simply finish the round with more points than the opponent, but to acquire as many points as possible. If you win an oral round by a score of 5 to 4, but the other two schools tie each other with 20 points in the same round, you have lost ground to those schools in the running total.

Questions ranged from historical (“What constitutional amendment led to the rise of “speakeasies?”) to scientific (“What is the name of the artery that carries blood to the legs?”) to mathematical (“What is the sum when 11011 is added to 101101 in binary?”) to musical (“What folk song contains the lyrics ‘Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free?”) to literary (What is the name of the character who simply desires to survive WWII in “Catch 22?”) to grammatical (“Identify the appositive in the preamble to the Constitution.) and beyond.

The Royal Knowledge Bowl team included two juniors (Maggie Delay and Guadalupe Guadarrama), three sophomores (Isaac Ellis, Hailey Moore, Jonathan Guadarrama), and one freshman (Alex Ramirez).

Regionals got off to a close start. After the written round, the scores were Zillah at 42 points, Cle Elum at 36, Highland and Royal both at 32 points.

Unfortunately, the inexperienced Royal team struggled substantially in the oral rounds against teams largely composed of seniors. The Knights frequently knew the answers but failed to buzz in quickly enough to score the point.

In the first oral round, Zillah scored 24 points to Royal’s 4. In the second round, it was Highland 14, Royal 4. In the 3rd round, it was Cle Elum 10, Royal 6.

Though Royal finished in 4th place out of four, things look promising for the future of Royal Knowledge Bowl. Carlson believes the squad will mature and gain experience both in the classroom and at the buzzer.