Taylor, Cinco Ranch quiz bowl teams compete at national championship tournament

Contributed Report
Posted 6/1/22

Cinco Ranch and Taylor high schools joined 270 of the top high school quiz bowl teams at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis for the 2022 High School National Championship Tournament.

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Taylor, Cinco Ranch quiz bowl teams compete at national championship tournament

Posted

Cinco Ranch and Taylor high schools joined 270 of the top high school quiz bowl teams at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis for the 2022 High 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.

Cinco Ranch entered two of the 22 Texas teams competing at the national championship.

Aaryan Sagar captained the A team, which included Hayden D’Gama, Tamim Hasan and Dimitris Kalafatis.

Robbie Hahn, Ben Hassall, Arnav Joshi and Grace Park were on the B team.

Robert Diethrich coached the teams and was assisted by Ashley Miller and Matthew Smith.

Cinco Ranch A began the preliminary rounds with a four-game winning streak, in which it defeated Sparkman from Harvest, Alabama; Harker A from San Jose, California; Southside A from Greenville, South Carolina; and Centennial A from Ellicott City, Md. It finished the preliminary rounds with a 7-3 record, which qualified for the playoffs.

Cinco Ranch B finished the preliminary rounds with a 4-6 record.

Cinco Ranch A played Strake Jesuit A from near home in round 15, suffering a 375-215 defeat.

There were some tense moments. The A team defeated Livingston from New Jersey by a narrow margin of 320-305 during round 6; suffered a narrow loss to the eventual champions, Detroit Catholic Central A from Novi, Mich., 340-330 during round 23; and suffered another narrow loss to Thomas Jefferson Science & Tech B from Alexandria, Virginia, 290-285 during round 26.

Cinco Ranch A spent three playoff games on the brink of elimination. It defeated White Station A from Memphis and Great Valley A from Malvern, Pa., before falling to Thomas Jefferson Science & Tech B from Alexandria, Va., ending its shot at the title.

Cinco Ranch B was on the brink of elimination when it defeated Edgewood from Merritt Island, Florida in round 7 to stay alive. Unfortunately, it lost to Grand Ledge from Michigan, ending its shot at the playoffs.

The A team finished in tenth place.

Mitchell Shadden captained the Taylor team, which included Saanvi Mhatre, Isabella O'Connor and Egan Wang. Chris Harris coached the team.

Taylor was one of 22 Texas teams competing at the national championship. It finished the preliminary rounds with a 7-3 record, which qualified for the playoffs.

Taylor was on the brink of elimination when it defeated Edison from New Jersey in round 22 to stay alive. Unfortunately, it lost to Ladue from St. Louis, ending its shot at the title.

Shadden was honored as an All-Star for correctly answering 115 tossup questions—26 of them for “power,” that is, so early as to earn extra points—in the preliminary rounds.

Taylor High School finished in 39th place.

The tournament champion was the A team from Detroit Catholic Central High School of Novi, Mich.

quiz bowl, Cinco Ranch High School, Taylor High School