UCS student places in top 25 at quiz bowl national championship tournament

SHELBY TOWNSHIP — Sterling Heights student Benjamin Edmunds, from the Gene L. Klida Utica Academy for International Studies, tied for 22nd in the field of 251 quiz bowl players at the National Academic Quiz Tournaments’ Individual Player National Championship Tournament.

The event took place April 6 in Rosemont, Illinois.  Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Guatemala were represented in the seventh championship of its kind.  

Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers and answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports and popular culture. 

Quiz bowl matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas.

The competition day involved seeding rounds to determine position for qualification. After five seeding rounds, the top players competed in an elimination round to determine the overall winner.  In addition, players who performed well in specific academic categories were honored for their performances.

The Individual Player National Championship Tournament was first held in 2018, and the 2020 championships were not held due to the COVID-19 outbreak. 

The 251 high school and middle school students from across the country came to the Hyatt Regency O’Hare to compete. The Individual Player National Championship Tournament, unlike most forms of quiz bowl, is a competition pitting players against each other without the support of their teammates.

William Dobbie, the head coach of the Gene L. Klida Utica Academy for International Studies quiz bowl team, said the academy has long had a successful quiz bowl team at UAIS; however, it has never had a player quite like Edmunds.

”While typically players focus on a particular area of study for these competitions, Ben has such a wide range of interests and the ability to learn and quickly recall so much material that he has literally taken to study all the subjects that come up in competitions. He works incredibly hard through the year, and his performance demonstrates that,” he said.

Edmunds also led his team the next weekend to a Class B state championship after an undefeated day of competition and a comeback victory against Detroit Country Day School where Edmunds grabbed the final five questions to take the victory. He was also named as the top finisher of the First Team All State.

“The team will be heading to Chicago on April 25 to compete in the NAQT Small Schools National Championship Tournament and in Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend to participate in the largest national quiz bowl tournament in the country, NAQT High School National Championship Tournament,” he said.

Dwight Kidder, an engineering software tester and member of NAQT, said there are multiple layers of competition going on during the Individual Player National Championship Tournament. 

“You have the competition among the top players going down to the final question, you have the competition among players to see where they rank in subjects, and there’s also a level of self-assessment that this tournament offers every player,” he said.

Kidder said that in college he competed in a team tournament without teammates. 

“It was a very clarifying experience for me to see exactly what I didn’t know, what I didn’t know well enough, or where I wasn’t confident enough in my own knowledge. I took what I learned from that experience to be a better player and teammate. This tournament gives every player that opportunity,” he said.

Many of the competitors in the Individual Player National Championship Tournament will compete later in the school year in one of NAQT’s team championships, either the Middle School National Championship Tournament, the Small School National Championship Tournament, or the High School National Championship Tournament on Memorial Day weekend. More information about these championships and the teams competing can be found at naqt.com.

The full statistical breakdown can be found on NAQT’s website at naqt.com/stats/tournament/standings.jsp?tournament_id=16005.