KVA falls in district Quiz Bowl


Kerr-Vance Academy’s Quiz Bowl season came to an end a couple of steps short of the state finals Saturday when the Spartan academic team lost in the district semifinals to Cary Academy 125-100.

KVA was the home team for the District 7 competition, hosted by Claire Basney and the H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library in the packed county commissioner meeting room at the old courthouse on Young Street. The champions of four counties competed for a spot in the Elite Eight at the finals of the North Carolina Public Library Quiz Bowl on April 23.

In addition to Wake County champion Cary Academy, Granville champion J.F. Webb High and Franklin winner Louisburg High made the trip to Henderson for a bit of intellectual March Madness.

Cary crushed Webb 230-50 in the final match to advance to the televised championship round. Cary will attempt to be the third consecutive Wake school to win the state title, after Raleigh Charter High School in 2004 and perennial power Enloe High in 2003.

“We think we did well, but Cary Academy was good,” KVA team member AtLee Watson said. “We almost beat them.”

Craig Burnham, Mimi Keil and Leslie MacInnes joined Watson in representing KVA. But there was some question as to whether they would even have to play Cary or whether they would advance by forfeit.

As read by Quiz Bowl official Cathy Nowell before the first match of the afternoon, teams are composed of no fewer than four and no more than eight students, with four team members competing at a time. But Cary brought only three students to Henderson because of conflicts with a debate contest and spring break.

“The rules say four. The rules say four,” the pro-KVA audience buzzed as the Cary trio prepared for the first match. Some in the crowd called for Cary’s disqualification, and KVA coach Mathew Philipose had a long talk with Nowell.

Cary was allowed to play but with a handicap: The fourth question for Cary in each of the three rounds would be deemed incorrect and would go directly to KVA for a chance at half-credit. In effect, Cary got a shot at only 75 percent of the points offered to its opponents.

The competition consists of three rounds, with each team facing four questions per round. In the first round, the questions go to individuals and are worth 10 points. The teams may consult on the 20-point second-round questions and the 30-point third-round questions. If a team misses a question, the other team gets a chance to answer it for half-credit.

Watson scored 15 points in the first round by knowing the meaning of manana (tomorrow) and the identity of the Indiana Pacer suspended for the season for brawling with Detroit fans (Ron Artest). Keil added 10 points when she knew that the 1991 Persian Gulf War is otherwise known as Desert Storm.

At the end of the round, the teams were tied at 25, but Cary took charge in the second round by correctly answering all three of its questions, covering Afghan President Hamid Karzai, British thermal units and omniscient third-person narrators. Cary picked up an extra 10 points for knowing how many tablespoons make up a cup (16, four times Kerr-Vance’s guess).

Kerr-Vance scored with the formal term for the murder of a king (regicide) and the computer-generated world in which people feel as if they are active participants (virtual reality). The measurement for the length of nails in construction (penny) and the name for the World Trade Center replacement (Freedom Tower) eluded the Spartans, and they trailed 95-55 going into the third round.

Cary got only one answer right in that round, recognizing the description of frescoes, but it was enough to stave off Kerr-Vance. KVA scored with the metric unit of force (newton) and gained 15 points for knowing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals criticized Jimmy Carter for a book cover featuring a freshly caught salmon (Cary had guessed Greenpeace).

Kerr-Vance’s last realistic chance at a comeback slipped away at the base of their brains.

Asked to name the part of the brain that sits atop the spinal cord and controls such functions as respiration and circulation, the Spartans offered “brain stem.” The correct answer was medulla oblongata, which is a part of the brain stem.

“My team would have won if not for the other team being better,” Philipose said wryly, “but my team did very well.”

Webb beat Louisburg in the second semifinal 120-115, scoring 30 points on the final question of the contest by knowing which U.S. president won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering an end to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 (Teddy Roosevelt).

The gut-check turning point in that match was a final-round question to Louisburg about the small intestine. Asked to name any of the three parts of that organ, Louisburg’s Kerry Nieto said something like “duldem,” which the judges allowed.

Webb’s Charles-Vincent Faulkner challenged that answer, spouting off the three parts, including the duodenum. Asked to rebut his argument, Nieto sheepishly said: “He may be right.”

The judges stripped Louisburg of the 30 points for the right answer but refused to give Webb the 15 points for correctly answering a question the other team missed. That led to another Webb challenge, a student debate over how the judges should address a situation the rulebook overlooked and a nearly 10-minute discussion among the competition officials.

Moderator Nick Long resorted to asking about NCAA basketball scores while the restless crowd awaited an answer. The audience broke into applause when the ruling came down in Webb’s favor, completing a 45-point swing that proved decisive.

But Webb was no match for an increasingly confident Cary team in the finals, and the other counties of District 7 will have to wait another year to try to knock off Wake.

Joshua Jacobs contributed to this report.