Lincoln Mason’s hosts State qualifying Scholastic Bowl

[February 20, 2018] 

LINCOLN

Area high school scholastic bowl teams gathered at Lincoln Community High School for an all-day competition on Saturday, February 17th. Lincoln Masonic Lodge 210 sponsored the qualifying competition with winners going on to compete in the state finals of the Illinois Masonic Academic Bowl.

Mid-day competitors featured the team from Williamsville, who filed in, took their seats and introduced themselves.

Shortly thereafter Lincoln filed in and did the same. Each team consisted of five players.

After the moderators set the ground rules, the ‘game was afoot.’

The questions came in a wide variety of subjects, math, the human body, psychiatry, etc. Students left few questions unanswered.

The Illinois Academic Bowl features a total of 319 schools across the state, divided into three classes - 1A, 2A, and 3A. The classes group the schools together according to enrollment size. The 1A class consists of all the smaller schools in the state. 2A schools are those in the mid-range, and the 3A schools are the larger enrollment schools in the state.

Lincoln participates in the mid-sized schools 2A class along with 65 other schools from across the state. All the Sectional competitions are held on the same day with a number of schools hosting competitions consisting of no more than 12 schools.

At Lincoln on Saturday, the following schools were in attendance: Beardstown High School, Central Catholic High School (Bloomington), Clinton High School, St. Teresa High School (Decatur), El Paso-Gridley High School, LCHS, Maroa-Forsyth High School, Fieldcrest High School (Minonk), Quincy Notre Dame High School, Riverton High School, Olympia High School (Standford), and Williamsville High School.

For those who missed the contests of mind and wit, it does not compare to any other type of youth competition.

You will not see - is a game winning catch in the ninth inning, you won't see a buzzer beater to win the basketball game; what you will experience is young men and women on the battle field of academia. This battle is every bit as grueling as the gridiron or the battle that takes place in the hockey rink.

Lincoln Masonic Lodge 210 Worshipful Master Dwight Reed with the Sectional champions Williamsville High School.

What you will see is this - concentration, teamwork, and young adults searching their brain data banks and firing an answer in a matter of seconds.

What mattered most was that 10 young men and women were passionately fighting for every correct answer they could muster. Not every answer was correct, but the response time to some of those questions could make one dizzy.

After a day of fast paced Q & A, the school that came out on top was Williamsville High School. Williamsville will go on to compete in the State Finals on March 3rd.

The top four finishers in addition to Williamsville included: Bloomington Central Catholic - 2nd place, Decatur St. Teresa - 3rd place, and LCHS - 4th place.

The LDN tips its hat to the all the warriors that participated in this great event.

[Mitch Douglas/LDN]