The first ever Quiz Bowl team at CHS has been off the ground and running since this fall.

Students representing every class from freshmen to juniors are involved in this after school club, and the team competes in matches against other schools.

In a match there are toss-up questions, which anyone from either team can buzz in and answer. If someone gets the correct answer to a toss-up, then his or her team gets to work together to answer three bonus questions. If the toss-up is answered incorrectly, one person from the other team can attempt to answer it correctly for points and the bonus questions. Similarly, if bonus questions are answered incorrectly by one team, the other team gets a chance to answer correctly for points.

Jessica Stahl, a JV sophomore member of the team, explained how much teamwork comes into play during any given match.

“It’s a very team sort of thing,” Stahl said. “You’d think it wouldn’t be, because everyone has different knowledge, but you can show each other ‘I know the answer’ or ‘I don’t know the answer.’”

Stahl said that the team members use what they know individually and collectively to help each other figure out answers to questions.

Questions are all worth ten points and come from the categories geography, literature, art, math, and science. Stahl also explained that because different people know different things, every match is a toss up.

“It’s nice because you never know who’s going to win,” she said. “They can be very close games.”

Some of the teams in the league that have been around for many years have the advantage of knowing what to study for, and they have more practice at buzzing in to answer questions in the fastest way possible. However, sophomore varsity member Evan Eidt explained that experience is not always everything.

“It’s not really about how long you’ve been established, it’s what you know,” Eidt said.

Even though Chelsea’s is the newest team in the league, it’s doing well, with a varsity record of 4-4 so far. The group has matches against other schools most Wednesdays and usually practice once a week in preparation.

“At practice we basically do fake matches, sort of like practice matches but against each other… [the week before break] we had Christmas questions and then sometimes the varsity team will write questions for the JV team and they can be really funny… It’s just fun,” Stahl said.

Along with the fun seems to come friendship and the test of hard work and knowledge.

“I really like all of the people that are there,” Eidt said. “We’re all just a bunch of nerds, but it’s really fun just to see what we know.”

They have many matches left this season, including a home match against Tecumseh on January 20th.  At the conclusion of their season in February, the varsity team will compete in the league championship tournament.

One unique thing about this team is that they have to put together knowledge acquired from different places and use things they have learned here in CHS.

“[I like that] you can actually apply stuff you learned in class to things beyond school,” Stahl said. “It’s really cool that you can do that.”