Yet another triumphant weekend was secured by the Mountain Lakes Academic team last Saturday at the Garden Cup III State Championship, placing 6th out of 66 teams who attended, and 3rd of every NJ team. Varsity team members included Olin Bose ‘24, Jack Wallace ‘24, Lillian Xie ‘24, Luci Ludlam ‘24, Yash Samat ‘24, and Harry Joelson ‘25.
Team Captain Bose also placed 4th out of 249 individuals competing in the event. In fact, he, along with Team Captain Topher Nielsen, have led a very successful season, with the duo and other members of the varsity team securing high-placing finishes in nearly every meet so far in the 2023-2024 season.
Club Overview
The ML Academic Team, colloquially known as Quizbowl, is a popular club at MLHS, hosting numerous participants from each grade. The team competes in various tournaments across the tri-state and surrounding areas, even going as far as Arlington, VA to compete in Nationals last year, in which the team won the small school division (the winning trophy can be found in the trophy case), while placing 27th overall of nearly 100 teams who qualified. These tournaments consist of several rounds, where a judge asks questions related to almost any academic or cultural subject, which any member of either team can attempt to answer. Once answered correctly, the team is given several “toss-up” questions, which they can attempt to answer for points. This process is repeated several times until all questions have been offered and the round is over.
In preparation, the team, led by Ms. Baier, practices weekly with questions from previous tournaments and competitions.
Season Overview
The Academic Team began their successful season with the Lehigh Valley Open Quiz Bowl Tournament, where varsity team members Olin Bose (‘24), Topher Nielsen (‘25), Harry Joelson (‘25), Owen Hatton (‘25), and Anthony Salerno (‘24) placed 4th of 18 competing teams and 2nd out of all NJ teams. Bose finished first overall individually, scoring an impressive average of 141 points per game in the preliminary rounds, before earning 118 points per game during the playoffs. This extraordinary performance led Bose to an astounding Quizbowl school record, replacing Ron Mucci ‘17 as the highest overall point scorer in MLHS history. This significant feat was achieved by racking up an astonishing 8255 points across 10 tournaments during his high school career, beating out Mucci’s 8155 points across 18.
The JV team also saw notable success, with team members Andrew Matty (‘26), Josh Koshy (’26), Gavin Hornyak (‘26), Emerson Coda (‘26), and Jacob Lakoff (‘27) placing 2nd out of 14 total teams, and securing an impressive first place finish among all teams hailing from New Jersey.
Continuing their success through early November, varsity team members Bose, Nielsen, Hatton, and Grace Fu (‘26) placed 9th among 36 teams and 2nd among all NJ teams at the Livingston Academic Competition Extravaganza. This was the first time ML brought four teams to a competition, which included the varsity team; B team members Matty, Hornyak, Evan Mei (‘26), and Graeme Wolter (‘26); C team members Salerno, Coda, and Jack Wallace (‘24); and D team members Jayden Cao (’25), Rithvi Emmess (‘25), and Ali Cherry (‘27). Matty, Wallace, Cao and Bose all placed in the top 50 individual point scorers of the competition, with Bose racking up an average of 98.5 points per game.
In December, the Harvard Fall Tournament at Columbia saw Mountain Lakes team members Bose, Wallace, Lillian Xie (‘24), and Luci Ludlam (‘24) take 3rd in a field of 13, placing first among all NJ teams; Bose amassed an astonishing 102.5 points per game, leading the competition, with the next highest scorer about ten points behind.
The team, having shown riveting success during the first half of the season, is prepared to continue competing in the new year, patiently awaiting 2024 Quiz Bowl nationals in April. The beauty of the club is highlighted by the fact that anyone can join as a club member, so if you think you have the knowledge and competitiveness to be on the team, or you just want to have some fun, inquire about joining the ML Academic Team to Team Captains Olin Bose or Topher Nielsen, whose emails are linked below.
Olin Bose – obose24@mlschools.org
Topher Nielsen – cnielsen25@mlschools.org
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