Quiz Bowl High School Tournaments at UL Lafayette

Quiz Bowl was revived after a 7 year hiatus, hosting high schools from all over Louisiana, and providing an opportunity for students to compete in a scholastic battle of wits and knowledge.

UL Lafayette’s Fall Tournament has been renamed in honor of its founder, Matthew Hayes, Ph.D.  As a member of the Louisiana Quizbowl community, Matthew has contributed an incalculable amount to the progress of quizbowl in the state, and as a result, the Club for Academic Competition decided to name the tournament in his honor.

In addition to high schools, the eighth grade class of Ascension Episcopal was allowed to participate in the tournament, which fielded questions and was included in the tournament.

Jake Sundberg: "Ascension's sponsor signed a team up... near the beginning of the registration session.  I didn't know anything of the team until later when she said a couple of her freshmen [left] the team.  She was wondering if it was okay if she could bring a few eighth graders to the event.  As you're allowed to play up to high school if you're in middle school, I saw no problem with this and said it was fine.  So the event comes and the team ends up being almost all eighth graders.  They were a friendly team the whole day despite not doing that well...So after the tournament, she thanks us for putting on a nice event.  I had very recently finished writing up the list of awards for the awards ceremony, and I noticed that there were only two teams eligible for JV registered for the event and they were one of them.  Well, since we bought a trophy for second place in JV and they were the second JV team registered for the event, they got the trophy and JV runner-up certificates.  The kids were so happy.  It made me smile."

Quiz Bowl for high school students encourages everyone to attend, and Honors is happy to host with the help of the Honors Quiz Bowl buzzers and materials. Jake Sundberg, a previous Honors student and current graduate student at UL Lafayette, is a valuable leader for the tournaments and the UL Lafayette Honors Quiz Bowl team.

Episcopal School of Acadiana’s A team was victorious at this weekend’s Matthew Hayes Invitational, going 11-0 en route to winning the title.  They were led by junior Sam Hebert who won the scoring title with an impressive 116.82 ppg, posting a statline of 38/78/13 in 11 matches.  ESA A won crucial matches against LSU Laboratory School (340-215) and Baton Rouge Magnet (380-275) en route to clearing the field.

Baton Rouge Magnet finished 10-1 on the day with impressive performances from senior Stefan D’Sa (75.00 ppg) and junior Mason Guillot (61.36 ppg).  Despite losing to ESA A, they managed to win their late-day match against University Lab 415-160 to clinch second place on the day.

University Lab School finished in third place on the day led by an impressive performance from the tournament’s outstanding senior, Wesley Swain, who posted a massive 34/80/13 statline, good for 113.18 ppg.

ESA’s B team won the junior varsity title.