On Monday, November 26, 2018, Kempsville’s Scholastic Bowl team faced off against Bayside in their fifth match of the season.

On the way to the match, in a white activity bus, they quiz each other. “Rap,” repeatedly answers Carson Blythe, senior, after his answer to a question on music genres is wrong. The team captain who was reading questions, Jacob West, laughs.

At Bayside High School they’re met with a surprise; Bayside has two teams, an “A” team, their varsity players, and a “B” team. Ms. Filipowicz, who coaches Kempsville’s Scholastic league, agrees to another game against Bayside’s “B” team, and Kempsville students shuffle around to create a JV team. The leader, they decide, is junior Cade Black.

In the first match with the varsity team against Bayside, students tossed questions back and forth, with answers varying from ‘Lord Byron’ to ‘Cardi B’. The first session ended Kempsville 30, Bayside 70,  and the first round (set of three sessions) with Bayside winning 220 to Kempsville’s 155. The second round concluded with Kempsville scoring 295, and Bayside won with 480.

Jeff Joyner, an English teacher at Bayside who administered the questions during the matches, said that he didn’t feel that the score did it justice.

“Everytime that the round was over, we [the timekeepers] were shocked that the score was what it was because they seemed to know a lot.”

In the JV match, Kempsville picked up speed and beat Bayside by 60 points, setting the match as 110 Kempsville to Bayside’s 50. Players were particularly amused when a question involving the popular battle royale game, Fortnight, came up.  

Joyner was impressed by Kempsville’s JV team, saying that it was “phenomenal,” and that Kempsville as a whole did “phenomenally well.”

“Our team works well together,” said Cade Black.

“Champions!” declared Jacob Kiefer, junior.