The best team no one knows about
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald The Moses Lake High School Knowledge Bowl team poses with its two statewide championship trophies from 2016 and 2017. L-R: Kritin Vega, Jacob Shank, Joe Bartlett, Dylan O’Brien, Aditya Sharma, Colton Pearce, and Mikena Loutherback.
MOSES LAKE — “We’re the best team no one at school knows about.”
At least that’s what Moses Lake High School sophomore Colton Pearce says.
Pearce is one of seven members of the Chiefs’ Knowledge Bowl team — along with seniors Jacob Shank, Aditya Sharma, and Joe Bartlett; junior Dylan O’Brien; and sophomores Kristin Vega, and Mikena Loutherback — which has just won its second state championship in a row.
Coached by Brook Frederick, who teaches advanced placement history and human geography, and J. R. Cox, who teaches math, the team had been working since October to get ready for the state finals.
“These kids enjoy the competition,” Frederick said.
The seven students described the state Knowledge Bowl contest in Arlington in mid-March as “Team Jeopardy,” answering questions on anything from exotic animals to nuclear physics to classical literature.
“They ask about anything, everything. It was stressful,” Vega said. “It got really stressful when we went into double overtime. We thought we’d lost for a while.”
“And we had to come back from a four-point deficit,” Shank added.
Indeed, team members said they spent much of the final round either tied or just behind, struggling with many of the same questions the other two finalists — Olympia High School and Lakeside High School — struggled with.
They managed to survive the first overtime when Vega was able to answer “okapi” when the teams were asked about “a ruminant from the Congo.”
“I only knew that because of a strange stuffed animal my parents got me when I was little,” Vega said.
The answer that won them the competition was “chivalry,” though no one could remember exactly what the question was.
“Something about ‘what theme do these books share,’” said Bartlett.
Frederick said most of the team members take “the most difficult classes” Moses Lake High School has to offer, and so are ready for something as challenging as the Knowledge Bowl.
“They never really get enough recognition,” Frederick said.
“It’s something I’m actually good it,” Vega explained. “I can’t do sports well, but I can actually do this well.”