The It’s Academic competition was on Wednesday December 7, 2016 and all the high schools in the county battled it out on the stage, showing off their amazing knowledge of chemistry, physics, literature, geography, history, and other random facts. It was organized into four games. The first game was McDonough, Westlake, and St. Charles competing against one another. The second game was North Point, La Plata, and Thomas Stone, and the third game was between the second place winners of the first two games: McDonough, La Plata, and Lackey. The final round was the winners of all three games: St. Charles, North Point, and La Plata. Each game consisted of a category round, team round, a toss-up round, and a tiebreaker, if necessary. The category round had 10 questions from a specific category such as beginning with the letter H, eighteenth century authors, or biology. The next round was a team round in which only one team could answer at a time. The final round was the toss up round with random trivia questions and the teams, as in the first round, had to buzz in to answer. Each team started out with one hundred points in each game.
In the first game McDonough, Westlake, and St. Charles faced off and St. Charles won the first round, the category round. During the team round St. Charles and McDonough both got a whopping 120 points compared to Westlake’s dismal 20 points. During the final round, the toss up round, Westlake came out of nowhere and scored more than both teams that round, but it wasn’t enough. At the end St. Charles won the game with a total of 290 points, and McDonough made it into the third game with 250 points; Westlake was out of the competition with 170 points.
In the second game, North Point, La Plata, and Thomas Stone faced off and La Plata won the category round. During the second, or team round North Point won that round with 40 points over La Plata and Thomas Stone. During the last round North Point scored 20 points, double La Plata’s and Stone’s 10 points. In the end North Pont won by a scarce 10 points, at 270 points with La Plata right behind them at 260, and Thomas Stone leaving the competition all together with a final score of 210 points. North point automatically got to the final game but La Plata would have to win the third game against Lackey and McDonough to get to the final game.
In the third game (or, as I like to call it, the redemption game for the second place teams) it was Lackey, our very own La Plata, and McDonough. The first round had the literature category, and La Plata swept the competition with 80 points compared to McDonough’s 10 points and Lackey’s 0 points. Lackey got on the board in the second round by gaining 120 points, the same as La Plata, but McDonough lagged behind with 100 points. In the last round, La Plata maintained the lead with 40 points and Lackey and McDonough both scored 10 points. Overall La Plata was redeemed, and moving on to the final game with 340 points.
Facing each other down in the final game was La Plata, North Point and St. Charles. This game would determine which school got the $500 check and got to tape at the NBC studio. The first round’s category was Events in 2016. North Point took that round with 40 points and St. Charles scoring 0 points and La Plata scoring 10 points. During the team round La Plata took the lead by gaining 120 points in the team round compared to St. Charles and North Point’s 80 points. During the final round, La Plata solidified the win by scoring 100 points compared to North Point’s dismal 20 points and St. Charles’s measly 10 points. The final scores were 190 for St. Charles, 240 for North point and a giant score of 330 points for the winning team, La Plata.
After the competition, the winning team was awarded the check and other, non-competing team members we given pins and competing team members were given first, second and third place medals.
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