Quiz Bowl team defeats Ivy League school

Liberty University’s Quiz Bowl team defeated four opponents in Virginia Commonwealth University’s tournament Saturday, Oct. 4.

During the tournament, the team answered questions covering biology, chemistry, literature, art, sports and popular culture.

Liberty’s varsity team beat Virginia Tech 215-100 and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) 125-105. Liberty’s junior varsity team defeated the University of Virginia (UVA) 140-80 and Virginia Tech 105-95.

Senior Jon Bateman, a history major who is currently in his third year on the Quiz Bowl team, said he is proud of the achievement.

“Well, we’ve done well before, and we’ve beaten UVA before, and we’ve beaten other schools like that, but UPenn is our first Ivy League school that we’ve actually defeated,” Bateman said.

Bateman described Quiz Bowl as a “Team Jeopardy.”

“Everyone buzzes in by themselves, but if you buzz and you get the answer correct, everyone on your team gets three bonus questions that they get to collaborate on,” Bateman said. “My knowledge of the history side of things has definitely increased, and I’ve gotten faster at answering history questions over the years. Just in general, the more you read, the more classes you take, the better you learn, the better you get at Quiz Bowl.”

According to the Liberty website, Liberty’s Quiz Bowl team has won seven Big South Conference tournaments in the past nine years. The team is currently preparing for the Academic Competition Federation sectional tournament that will take place Nov. 8 at the University of Maryland.

“There’s going to be a lot of teams that are there,” Bateman said. “I know that Virginia Tech will be there again. There’s like 18 teams going there, so it will be pretty large.”

According to Bateman, the team practices twice a week in sessions of 90 minutes.

“We do about 60 different Quiz Bowl questions at practice, and mainly you just practice by doing,” Bateman said. “I’m excited for it, and I hope the team and Liberty just keep doing better.”

One comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *