After a strong finish in the state tournament, the Schofield Middle School Academic Team will leave Friday for Chicago to compete nationally.
The six sixth-, seventh and eighth-graders on the team, known as Team Awesome, will represent their school this weekend in the National Academic Quiz Tournaments' Middle School National Championship Tournament. Nearly 200 teams from public, private and home-school associations from across the country will compete.
The team placed second overall in the state National Academic Quiz Tournament to earn an invitation to the national competition, said Aaron Knowles, the team's coach who teaches sixth- and eighth-grade social studies.
Locally, Team Awesome lives up to its nickname: They are undefeated.
“We have not lost a match in Aiken County in two and a half years,” Knowles said. “This is the first time any school in the school district has competed nationally in more than a decade.”
To prepare for the national tournament, the team has been practicing three times a week, and the students have been practicing on their own daily, Knowles said.
On the first day of the tournament, teams will compete against 10 different teams in a round-robin match.
“Depending on how we do that day, then the next day we'll be entered into the tournament,” Knowles said. “Whoever wins the tournament is the national champion. Our goal is to play the entire weekend.”
The quiz questions cover different subject areas, including history, language arts and literature, science, math, popular culture, modern politics and sports.
“It can be anything, and the questions are completely random,” Knowles said. “They threw out a question about pro wresting one time.”
The team members have special interests and, pooling their knowledge, work together to answer the questions, said Lila Dawson, the team captain.
“We have someone who is very interested in Broadway, so if there's a question about Broadway, they're going to know about that. We have someone who is very interested in the sciences, and they're going to know that,” said Dawson whose specialties are literature, social studies and general knowledge.
Tournament results will be updated throughout the three-day competition at naqt.com and on Twitter at #msnct.
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PHOTO CREDIT: Larry Wood/The Aiken Standard