On Saturday, January 12, Fossil Ridge High School’s Knowledge Bowl team competed at their annual home meet.  Fossil finished in fourth place with 108 points, a score that would have earned them second place had the final round not been locked.

Knowledge Bowl is a trivia-based club that competes against other schools in the state in speed and accuracy of answering questions. Meets begin with a sixty-question group test over science, history, language, and many other categories. Based on their performance on this test, teams are divided into rooms to compete against two other teams. There are four rounds following the test in which teams can move up and down between rooms based on their performance against the other teams. Volunteer readers ask fifty questions and teams have fifteen seconds to answer. The objective is to make way to the first room, where three teams compete for the first, second, and third place slots in the completion.

Standings after the test left Fossil’s A team in second place preceded by Fort Collins High School’s A team and followed by Fossil’s B team. Already in the topmost room, Fossil was confident and ready to win. Senior member of the A team, Josh Lee, said, “We are nervous for this meet, however we’ve worked very hard so I think we will perform well.“ As round one came to a close, Fossil remained in the second place position with 66 points, just behind Stargate High School’s 69 points. In the third place slot lay Boulder High School with 65 points.

As round two kicked off, Lee was missing from the room. After a brief search, the round began without him. With only three members of the team present, round two was off to a rough start. However, after the twenty-fifth question, Lee was found and substituted back in and things began looking up for Fossil’s team. At the end of the round two Fossil finished second in the room, as Stargate made the best of the second half.

Fossil returned to the top room to take on the most difficult competitors. In first sat Stargate, followed by Fort Collins and Fossil, respectively.  Despite Fossil’s finishing second in the room for round two, the Fort Collins team performed well enough in the second room that it was able to secure the second spot in room one for round three. Fort Collins junior, Henry Cafaro commented, “Whatever happens happens, it’s no big deal. We’ll just have fun, answer questions. It’s just fun to compete with the other teams.“

Throughout round three, Fossil tailed behind Stargate and Fort Collins, ultimately finishing third in the room with eight points. Stargate earned 14 points and Fort Collins led with 18. This loss knocked Fossil down to the second room and allowed Boulder High School to obtain the third slot in room one.

As the fourth and final round commenced, Fossil sat in the second room for the first time in Saturday’s competition. They earned twenty two points and dominated the room, beating University High School’s seven points and Liberty Common High School’s four. This left Fossil with a final of 108 points, University with 93, and Liberty Common with 87.

In the top room, however, Stargate finished with 115 points, Fort Collins with 107, and Boulder with 106. Based on those scores, Fossil should have placed second in the competition. Unfortunately for the team, the competition was locked for the final round, meaning no teams could move between rooms. Nevertheless, coach Martha Cranor was incredibly proud, saying, “It takes a lot to put on a competition and this year we doubled the amount of teams. Our team had to work extra hard and I just can’t say enough good things about the Fossil Ridge Knowledge Bowl team.”

Knowledge Bowl will compete again on Saturday, January 26, so wish the team good luck as they draw closer to the state competition.