Buzzers will be primed and answers flying this Saturday as a small but impressive Rappahannock County High School Scholastic Bowl team heads to the state championship.
Despite being composed of only six students, the team has maintained a competitive edge throughout its season under longtime coach Dave Naser.
Naser, who started the team nearly a quarter of a century ago, has guided it to a string of state championships and runner-up finishes — so many that he’s lost count, but is sure this is at least the tenth — and continues to lead the team even after retiring from full-time teaching last year.
“I’ve always enjoyed it,” Naser said. “But it’s definitely a challenge to build a team that can compete at that level.”
That building starts early. Students begin preparing for the season months in advance. Practices start in late August, shortly after school begins, meeting twice a week for 90-minute sessions. Those sessions involve reviewing questions from previous years and drilling material — ranging from Greek mythology to geography to geopolitics — that may appear in competitions.
Naser said questions are organized into sweeping categories like history, math, science, pop culture and politics, and competitors never know specifics about what topics the tournament questions may cover. The team splits up responsibilities of studying each category.
“[In practice] sometimes we’ll look at specifics, like how to do math problems or something like that, but mostly what we do is go over sets of old questions and sample questions and just repetition,” Naser explained. “If something has come up before, chances are it’ll come up again.”
Coach Dave Naser points to freshman Aine Arndt to answer a question at practice last Thursday. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
Competition days themselves are fast-paced with a 50-question format for a chance at 500 points, toss ups that any team can claim — if they are quick enough — and then team-directed questions where teammates can collaborate on answers. If a team gets one of their questions wrong, it bounces to another team who can steal those points.
Naser said with only two upperclassmen, he relies heavily on their experience and knowledge.
“There have been so many times where, in my opinion, there have been matches that truly weren’t decided by knowledge. Both ourselves and the other team were equally good. It was just how fast your finger could press down on that button,” said Ruth Cossette, a senior and the team’s highest scorer this season with over 3,000 points so far.
For the students, Scholastic Bowl is about more than the trophies — of which they have a case full. The six students — Cossette, Jameson Snelson, Zach Wilkinson, Anastasia Kaminski, Aine Arndt and Annika Purnell — said they are all friends, laughing together and sharing candy and inside jokes at practices. They enjoy the camaraderie they have found participating in the sport.
“I don’t have stamina. I cannot really take many physical sports. But there’s a sense of community in this, acceptance,” eighth grader Kaminski said. “After joining the team, I do think it did do a boost in my self confidence.”
Team members also said they have gained helpful skills like memory recall and practical knowledge.
“It’s helpful … Not just how much I know, but my thinking processes have improved,” Cossette said.
Rappahannock may be one of the smaller teams in the bracket — but they don’t see themselves as underdogs.
“In the past, we’ve always been afraid of going against bigger teams … And this year, we’ve come to the realization that there may be teams that we go against that are afraid of us,” Snelson, a senior, said. He has been a member of the team his entire high school career.
“The competitions are actually really fun once you get there,” Wilkinson added. “You’re in the zone, it’s very competitive and you’re having a good time, no matter how it goes.”
The coach put it simply: “We have at least as good a chance as anybody else.”
The RCHS Scholastic Bowl team practicing ahead of the state competition. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
