This past weekend, the Academic Team participated in the State tournament for the first time in 15 years.

“They’re doing phenomenal,” Ryan Bixby, chemistry teacher, said. “We did okay in our tournaments leading up to it, but we’ve been on fire the last six weeks.”

The team defeated Springfield Central 480-260, Lee’s Summit West 460-270, and Park Hill South 410-350 in the preliminaries, and lost to Clayton 350-410 in the semi-finals. In the finals, MHS lost to Hickman 230-450, landing the team fourth place.

“We placed in fourth, so we got a trophy, and we all got medals,” Cooper Hoffmeyer, sophomore, said. “I think we’re pretty happy about it because we haven’t placed in a State tournament since I think 1997, which was before most of us were born, so we couldn’t really ask for more.”

Nora Madaras, sophomore, has been on the team since her freshman year. She joined last year to pursue her interest in academics and trivia. She said that while Bixby is new to the group, he is still a valuable part of the team.

“Even though it’s his first year doing it, he’s still very knowledgeable, and our team is actually doing better this year,” Madaras said.

The team won districts this year, and beat Francis Howell in Sectionals.

Mason Smith, junior, joined Academic Team last year as a sophomore. This year, he moved up to captain of the team.

“It’s just a remarkably nerdy activity, and it’s just a comfortably nerdy environment,” Smith said.

Five team members, Smith; Matthew Chan, senior; Hoffmeyer; Brandon Bleyer, sophomore; and Ethan Lungren, junior, attended the State tournament and many are already looking to improve for next year.
“We’re going to step up as leaders, and I think we could probably clench second or maybe first place next year,” Hoffmeyer said.

Hoffmeyer is attending Quiz Bowl camp with Lungren this summer in hopes of improving the team’s performance.

Bixby is looking forward to the team’s performance next year.

“We’ve already started talking about who’s going to do what, sort of preparing for next year,” Bixby said. “We’re looking to fill some knowledge vacuums that are going to be created with the loss of Matthew Chan and Mason Smith, but there are lots of strong sophomores on the team, and I think they are very adequately going to fill the spots left by the two seniors.”