A team from James E. Taylor High School placed 4th at the National Scholastic Championship (NSC) held on June 2nd and 3rd. NSC was held in Reston, Virginia at the Hyatt Regency Reston, and was run by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE). Taylor quizbowlers competed in a field of 96 high school teams from around the country.
Taylor won their preliminary pool 7-0, and in the first and second rounds of the playoffs went 5-0 and 4-3, respectively. Combined statistics for all rounds of NSC are available here.
Taylor’s team is composed of seniors Joseph Kusko, Jacob Redland, and Ashwath Seetharaman, and junior William Golden. Out of 411 players, Golden was the 10th-highest individual scorer, with an average of 99.47 points per game over the course of the tournament.
Earlier this year, Taylor won Texas’ quizbowl State Championship.
Quizbowl is an academic competition played between two teams of up to 4 active players. Players “buzz in” on questions, which cover a wide range of academic topics including literature, history, science, and the arts.
Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE), founded in 1996 by a volunteer group of players and coaches, has been promoting high school quizbowl for nearly 20 years. In addition to running the annual National Scholastic Championship, PACE recognizes high-quality local tournaments and sponsors the Quizbowl Resource Center, a hub for tournaments, question sets, and discussion.
For more information on PACE, please visit our website at pace-nsc.org.