Ponoka’s Composite High School’s School Reach team has reached to top.
The team recently took home two awards from provincials in Lacombe.
The team won first place and was awarded the sportsmanship award.
While the team is bigger, the school was able to take only six members to provincials due to regulations.
Mathew Soborn, Sam Hubert, Angus Tulloch, Emily Jacobs, Kayla Nakoneshny and Brian Hoar made up the provincial team.
Each game is made up of two teams of four players.
“It’s like Jeopardy, only you’re on a team,” said Maryann Lafrance, one of the team’s coaches.
Ponoka played six games during provincials and lost only one, by 70 points, to Lacombe, during the round robin portion of the competition.
“Most games are fast-paced,” said Gary Hoogers, another coach. “The semifinal game was a nail-biter.”
Ponoka played against West Highland College, a private school from Calgary their semifinal game and won by one question.
Ponoka took the final game by 110 points. They were against Webber Academy, another Calgary private school.
Each question is worth 10 points and special questions are worth 20.
“We were pretty confident,” Hubert said, referring to the team’s mindset going into the tournament.
“It’s about strategy, playing the angles,” Hoogers said. If it’s a question that’s anticipated to be easy the team should buzz in before the question is done being read.
“You don’t want the other team to get an easy question.”
The team agrees it’s nice to have something to do at lunch that also teaches you something, and they enjoy the competitiveness.
Next year the members of the team will progress to a senior competition level and even though, according to Hoogers, the difficulty level increases greatly, the members of the team plan to continue with School Reach.
By Amelia Naismith