It was as close to a photo finish as you can get in a trivia competition. But in the end, Lisgar Collegiate Institute captured its first national Reach for the Top championship in Edmonton.
Reach for the Top is a Jeopardy-like academic quiz competition in which teams of high school students compete with to answer a wide variety of questions about anything from pop culture to math.
Lisgar’s senior Reach team, including five students from grades 9 through 12, narrowly beat their archrivals from the University of Toronto Schools in a nail-biter of a final.
Even after finding themselves down 55 points to UTS, the Lisgar students didn’t give up and came back in the last 90-second round to win by five points — the equivalent of half of a question.
Chris Greenwood, one of the older members of the team, says the win came as kind of a shock.
“It was really unreal,” he said. “The team we beat was the same team we lost to in provincials. We were hoping to win but we weren’t really expecting to win.”
In May, Lisgar met UTS in the provincial Reach championships, but fell short as the Toronto team walked away with the title in another close match.
In fact, Lisgar’s record when competing against UTS is now six losses and only one win — the single victory coming at the national championships.
But winning wasn’t easy. Lisgar played a total of 14 matches over three days, losing only two.
After answering a math question successfully to take the lead from UTS, Lisgar buzzed in with an incorrect answer, allowing the opposition the chance to respond. Luckily, after a video review by the judges, it was determined that UTS buzzed in after the timer had already gone.
Although the judges took about 10 minutes to review the play, it felt more like 20 for the Lisgar team.
Celia Byrne says her “body felt like jello” both before the competition began and after the team won.
Nevin Hotson, another senior member of the team, says the aggressive way in which the team played was the “equivalent of pulling the goalie” in hockey — a move that eventually paid off.
After the provincial championships, Lisgar’s players decided they needed to be quicker with the buzzer, a goal the team felt was accomplished — especially in the last 90 seconds of the final match.
The welcome home from Edmonton was much appreciated by the team members, who received school-wide recognition for their accomplishments.
Hotson called the winning moment “euphoric”, while Greenwood said everyone was “ecstatic.”
“This is only the second national championship the school has won in anything,” he said. “So everyone is pretty excited.”
The senior Reach team will be different next year as three of the students are graduating from Lisgar and their volunteer coach, Tamara Vardomskaya, will be moving on, as well.
Although the team will need some rebuilding, Vardomskaya isn’t worried.
“The juniors are doing very well,” she said. “They’re quite promising.”
The team’s staff adviser, Ruth Crabtree, says this year will be “a tough act to follow” but for right now the kids are just enjoying the moment.
“I’m ecstatic, stunned, and just thrilled for them,” she said. “They’ve worked so hard.”
In a single game at nationals, Lisgar had a score of 665 point — a total which at that point was higher than all the other games combined.
Lisgar’s Hotson was also named to the Reach for the Top all-star team and was awarded a bursary.
Other members of the championship Reach team are Jeff Gao and Patrick Liao.