PRESS RELEASE – With its strong finish at The Anita Zuber Memorial Tournament, the quiz bowl team from Evergreen High School in Metamora proved themselves worthy to play on a national stage.
On Friday, April 25, the team will represent their school in a 148-team national competition: National Academic Quiz Tournaments’ Small School National Championship Tournament.
Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of four students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers to answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports, and popular culture.
The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas.
Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.
Evergreen has attended the Small School National Championship Tournament five times before. Most recently, in 2023, they made the playoffs and finished in 21st place.
The SSNCT is the only quiz bowl national championship pitting small schools against each other. It has one division containing non-selective public schools with 500 or fewer students in their top three grades, and another division for other schools with 350 or fewer students in their top three grades.
Evergreen may face familiar foes in Rosemont, as Ottawa Hills (from Toledo), Pettisville, and Swanton will also be attending.
The team comes in with some nationals experience: Jada Blanchard, Sophia Goodson, Ethan Grasser, and Jordan Ruby played the 2023 Small School National Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois (near Chicago).
The team, in the Traditional Public Schools Division, will be captained by Ethan Grasser, who will be joined by Caden Beier, Jada Blanchard, Hannah Brown, Sophia Goodson, John Mitro, Jordan Ruby, Isaac Sheets, and Olivia Weirich. The team will be coached by Bill Blanchong.
Tournament results will be updated throughout the three days of competition at http://www.naqt.com/go/stats/16001 so everyone can follow along and see how the team does. You can also follow #ssnct on Instagram.