The Scholars Bowl team took home a state championship Saturday afternoon. 

Senior Max Mitchell said the win was a great way to wrap up his three years on the team. 

“I think it was the perfect ending to my Scholars Bowl career,” Mitchell said. 

Mitchell led the team by scoring 240 points during the tournament, but he said it was a group effort.

“Everybody was answering questions. Everybody was in that flow state of getting questions right,” he said. “We had a very balanced approach.”

The team beat out regional winner Bishop Miege for the title. Along with Mitchell, seniors Georgia Martin and Justin Shoemaker, junior Nate VanFoeken and sophomore Eugene White competed in the tournament. Junior Addy Barnard attended as an alternate. 

Shoemaker said it feels surreal to win after all of the work they’ve put in.

“We’ve just meshed really well this year and that comes out at Scholars Bowl,” he said. “Getting to end on such a strong note kind of means the world to me.”

Shoemaker said this was the best team environment he’s ever experienced in Scholars Bowl. 

“I was telling our team before we went in, ‘No matter how today goes, this is going to be my favorite year,’” he said.

Martin said she was excited and in disbelief after the team won. 

“I felt very proud of our team,” she said. 

Martin said the team made it to first place because they were just out there having fun. 

“For the entire tournament, we were very excited to be there,” she said.

Addy Barnard was overjoyed when the team won.

“I was really, really happy,” she said. “But I was really just, like, shocked that we did it.”

Coach Jim Barnard said he feels thrilled about the win. 

“I’m still kind of, like, in shock and in awe and just kind of relieved that it worked out in our favor,” he said.

This is Jim Barnard’s second state championship within the school year. The girls cross country team won state under his coaching in October. 

“It’s kind of remarkable,” Jim Barnard said. “It’s a testament to just being surrounded by good kids.”

He said Scholars Bowl is different from athletics because it’s difficult to predict who is going to win. 

“When you’re coaching athletics and sports, you sometimes, like, you know you have the best team going in,” he said. “In Scholars Bowl, it’s just like you are one of eight teams and any of the eight teams can win.”

He said it all came down to the team getting all the right questions. 

“We just got enough questions that we knew the answers to,” he said. 

Reach reporter Ryn Drummond at [email protected] 

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