When you’re on your school’s knowledge bowl team, that knowledge is power, something Lenape High School’s junior varsity and varsity A2 teams have in abundance judging by recent victories at the Donovan Academic Tournament in Toms River.
The junior varsity team, captained by sophomore Sean Moynihan, took home a first-place trophy from the competition and the varsity A2 team, co-captained by juniors Carlos Bollar and Robbie Christ, won third against teams throughout the state.
While academic prowess certainly played a significant part in the results, it is the Lenape team members’ knowledge of each other that is their biggest strength.
“There are only seven members to a team and once you’re recruited to a team, you stay on that team as long as you’re part of knowledge bowl,” Bollar said. “Thus I think in a way we get to know each other really, really well.
“We’re a tight-knit group of people and we get really close.”
Competitions are Jeopardy style and cover a wide range of topics — from math and science to music and pop culture — so it pays to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses. For students, forming close friendships is more than just a team-building exercise. It is an asset when it comes to competitive ability.
“You definitely want a well-rounded team,” Moynihan noted.
Securing a spot on the team is no small feat as Advisor Mary Ann Stecher — who has led the Lenape knowledge bowl program for 30 years — can attest. Tryouts consist of a test meant to stump even the most book smart students.
“The test is mega hard, and it’s meant to be; no one passes. We want to see who really is the cream of the crop,” Stecher explained.
Hopefuls are chosen based on three criteria: how they perform on the test, how they perform during a mock competition and their individual strengths. During the mock competition, captains take notes on things such as how well an individual works with a group, if they are willing to compromise and whether or not they are too domineering.
According to the team captains, this year students are trying to tweak their approach to preparing for competitions. Most of the students on the school’s knowledge bowl teams are also active in a number of other extracurricular activities, so there is no regular practice schedule in place.
The team members make a concerted effort to meet as a group before and after competitions and figure out how they can improve their game.
“I think this year we’re coming into a new age of knowledge bowl where we’re becoming more organized,” Bollar said of the new push. “We’re starting to organize practices, whereas in the past we would just go on what we knew and that’s it. But playing off what we knew came with flaws that we would just never fix. This year, we’re trying to hammer out those flaws with more practices and more organization.”
So far, the approach seems to be paying off, especially for Moynihan, who in his first tournament as captain was able to lead his junior varsity team to its first first-place win.
“It was a great match; it came down to the last question,” Stecher said.
“Now that I’ve seen what the team can do and I know we’ve won and we’re capable of doing this, I’m extremely excited,” Moynihan added.
