Chelsea Quiz Bowlers competed valiantly while making new friends along the way

Quiz Bowlers from Chelsea Beach Middle School had an overall great experience at a recent regional competition.

A group of 6th, 7th and 8th grade Beach Middle School (BMS) students participated in the Southeast Michigan Middle-Level Administrators Association Quiz Bowl competition on Feb. 4, at Saline Middle School. The Sun Times News (STN) followed up with the team through teachers Mike Lott and Kelsey Miller.

They said the Quiz Bowl competition combines a challenging academic competition while encouraging cooperation between schools and students. At the challenge in Saline, each Chelsea student was placed in a group with other students from Dexter, Pinckney, Milan, Saline, Lincoln, and Ann Arbor Slauson for four rounds of team trivia challenges.

“All of the BMS students answered questions and competed valiantly while making new friends along the way,” Lott and Miller told STN.

This year's BMS Quiz Bowl Team participants were:

6th Grade: Willow Walther, Mia Szatkowski, Gavin Heinze, Dominic Brodeur and Kayla Sherry.
7th Grade: Henry Van Hoek, Simeon Strong, Nicholas White, Sebastian Valdina and John Orlandi.

8th Grade: Emily Schaefer, Ari Klink, Isaac Snyder, Rowan Burkel and Leo Alafita.

STN asked the Quiz Bowlers about the competition and what they like about it.

"A fun thing was being up for a challenge with the mysterious question of who knows what the answer would be,” said sixth-grader Willow Walther.

While seventh-grader Henry Van Hoek said, "Quiz Bowl in Saline is great because it's a not very competitive way to test your trivia knowledge.”

For sixth-grader Dominic Brodeur, the overall experience made it a fun day in Saline

“One of the things I liked about Quiz Bowl was getting the overall thrill of it,” he said. “The suspense of the score and the questions really made it worthwhile, not to mention it being right at your fingertips. There were a lot of random questions that I knew, but that made it fun, since you never knew what questions were coming up and the excitement when you somehow got it was unbelievable.”