Over the weekend, Saint Stephens’ Academic team sent two teams to Largo High School, a varsity and a junior varsity, to compete in the regional History Bowl and History Bee competition. Junior Jackson Nealis led the varsity team composed of seniors Sophia Berry, Tyler Kadivar, and Maxine mandt. Sophomores Theo Frano and Patrick Van Eyck made up the junior varsity team.

There were three parts to Saturday’s competition.

Firstly there’s the History Bowl, which is a team style competition comprised of four rounds. The first round consists of ten questions, the second round consists of eight (each with one bonus question), the third round is a speed round where each team chooses from three categories and answers eight questions within a minute, and the fourth and final round has a series of “powers” (extra points given based on how quickly the question is answered) where a player can get either 30, 20, or 10 points depending on the speed of their response. 

Though this was the team’s first ever time competing in the History Bowl, the varsity division placed second against ten other teams.

The second part of Saturday’s competition was the National History Bee tests. There were four tests: U.S. History, Political Science History, Science, and Geography. Those who get at least a 75% on at least one of the tests qualify for Nationals in D.C.. 

The third part of the competition was the individual History Bee competition. There were two divisions, varsity and junior varsity, which had seven competitors each. In the varsity division Saint Stephen’s junior Jackson Nealis won first, and senior Sophia Berry placed third. In the junior varsity division, sophomore Patrick Van Eyck placed third.