EAST LANSING, Mich. - Detroit Catholic Central High School, Harper Creek, and Kent City high schools emerged from the 2003 State Championship High School Quiz Bowl tournament with state titles in their respective classes.
More than 600 high school students from across the state gathered at Michigan State University on April 11-12 to participate in the competition former state Sen. Dan L. DeGrow began as an annual event 16 years ago.
The event was held at MSU for the third time this year. The MSU Honors College and Meijer co-sponsored the event.
State Quiz Bowl consists of three simultaneously run tournaments: Class A, Class B and Class C/D. The competition is double-elimination and is open to quiz teams who have won either a league championship or major tournament.
In the Class A finals, Detroit Catholic Central (DCC) took first place after beating Okemos High School 735-435 in the final match. Members of the DCC team, coached by Howard Weinberg and Susan Leininger, included: Peter Troyan, Charles Drummond, Joel Knight, Joseph Rancour, Michael Warren, Gabe Crawford, Steve Budde, Frank Patino, James Conklin, Michael Olson, and John Sovinsky. The second place team from Okemos, coached by Matt Morrison, Sherman Garnett, and Paulette Stenzel, consisted of Shuyu Wang, Yan Zhao, Nathan Scherbarth, Sara Garnett, Paul Sherrill, Greg Devries, Mike Bommarito, Abhishek Mahanti, Inna Dykman, Ayano Toth, Peyton Shieh, Tavan Eftekhar and Leora Norkin. The team from Petoskey High School placed third.
In the Class B competition, Harper Creek defeated Detroit Country Day School with two exciting final matches. Shaan Gandhi, Jeremy Wagner-Kaiser, Josh Heersema, Eric Strough, Ruth Lincoln, Michelle Toll, Chris Alt, Jared Heersema, Nayana Sen and Nico Eckerskorn were on the winning team coached by Kathy Rizor. The second-place Detroit Country Day School team, coached by Eugene Jurkiewicz and Carl Westhoff, included Tim Svenson, Kurt Garwood, Neil Lydick, Dan Novinson, and Brandon Egren. Andover High School placed third in this bracket.
The Class C/D competition, won by Kent City High School, was also a close match. The Kent City High team, coached by Sid Smith and John Stark, was composed of Erin Brooks, Sam Callen, Andrew DeGroot, Tyler DeVos, Nathan Drechsel, Seth Edgar, Dario Figueira, John Hersey, Kyle Meinke, Rachel Nota, Isaac Owens, Brandon Sexton and Justin Waller. Second place went to Centreville High School and team members Tiffany Troyer, Doug Schrock, Meredith Jessup, Aaron Hartong, Kurtis Wickey and Jeremy Loucks. Kathy Braind coached the Centreville team. Harbor Beach High School took third.
All three championship teams have the chance to compete in other nationwide quiz bowl competitions.