Mountain Lake Senior High Team #1 harnesses that power to finish 6th in State Division A K-Bowl
Francis Bacon, a late 16th Century and early 17th Century English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist and author, as well as both Attorney General and Lord Chancellor England, is attributed the quote, “Knowledge is power.”
Mountain Lake Public High School Senior High Knowledge Bowl (K-Bowl) Team #1 harnessed that power to finish sixth in the Minnesota State K-Bowl Division A contest, held last Thursday evening, April 10, at Cragun’s Resort in Brainerd with 103.5 points. Team members include senior Christian Pfeiffer and juniors Hamlet Tanyavong, Caleb Rempel, Daniel Harder and Reece Englund. The K-Bowl coach is Jon Harder, the school’s technology coordinator.
The team made the trip to state as the first-place team representing Region 8A. They finished on top in that competition on Thursday, March 13, the contest held on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University-Marshall (SMSU). Prior to that, Team #1 was also #1 at the Region 8A Sub-Regional contest, held Tuesday, March 11, also at SMSU.
Winning this year’s K-Bowl was St. John’s Prep, scoring 128.5 team points. Glencoe/Silver Lake Black was second with 120 points, followed by Plainview/Elgin/Millville, 111.5 points; Tri-City United, 110.5 points and Albany, 103.5 points, topping the Mountain Lake team in a tie-breaker..
Each year, about 8,000 Minnesota high school students participate in K-Bowl throughout the state. Of those, 250 are represented at the state tournament for senior high teams. Region 8A sent three teams to state – the top three from the regional meet. In addition to Mountain Lake, the region was represented by Jackson County Central and Murray County Central. The team from Jackson County Central was 12th, scoring 93.5 points, while Murray County Central finished 14th with 91.0 team points.
(See state scoresheet below for full A team results)
At the state competition there is an AA division for larger schools (this year ranging in size from 643 to 5,011 students) and an A division (114 to 525 students of which Mountain Lake is near the bottom with 155 senior high students in grades 9-12).
Each team includes four members and one alternate. The Mountain Lake team rotated among alternates, so all five participating had a chance to compete in the oral rounds (all five members participate in a written round). After “buzzing in,” the team has 15 seconds to discuss their answer – which may only be submitted by the team’s spokesperson (for Mountain Lake, that spokesperson is Christian Pfeiffer). Usually someone buzzes in before the question has been completely read, so that team must decide what the question was ultimately about – from among several likely options.
The competition started Thursday evening with a written round of 60 questions, which gave each team their initial rank for the next day’s oral rounds. Mountain Lake placed 9th after the written, with a score of 44 out of 60.
The three highest-ranked teams start in room #1, the next three in #2, and so on, so that each team competes against two similarly-skilled teams.
At the end of each round of 45 oral questions, the teams accumulate points for questions answered correctly, and their rank is adjusted according to their new total. A team that is in a room with other teams of lesser skill will tend to get more answers correct and move to a higher-ranked room for the next round, while teams playing less well will move down in rank. After five oral rounds, the positions have settled to give a good representation of a team’s skill level.
The scoring system recognizes that the top three rooms – #1, #2 and #3 – are very challenging and teams are awarded Strength of Scoring (SOS) points for every round a teams plays in these rooms. According to this system: Room 1 = 1.5 points, Room 2 = 1.0 and Room 3 = 0.5. Mountain Lake played in Room 3 once (first oral round) and Room 2 once (fourth oral round), and so received an additional 1.5 SOS points in their final score.
At the end of all of the oral rounds, Mountain Lake and Albany were tied for 5th place. A 15-question tie-breaking round went to Albany, who answered five answers correctly to Mountain Lake’s four correct answers. This left Albany in fifth-place, and Mountain Lake ending in sixth.
