Pictured above is the Fieldcrest Middle School Scholastic Bowl Team. Front Row (L-R): Allison Nenne; Heather Olson; Marc Reiter; Braiden Skinner;
James Leigh
Back Row (L-R): Kristine Tarmann; Jeremy Flahavan; Stephanie
Farling; Chelsea Allison; Ryleigh Livingston; Dylan Geringer; William
Milashoski; Bethany Glock; Ashley Fewell; Zak Kline; Coach Nancy Reiter
Scholastic Bowl Team goes to State
On 1/11/07, fifteen students from Fieldcrest Middle School and their coach began a journey that would end at the IESA Scholastic Bowl Tournament at Heartland Community College in Bloomington.
Scholastic Bowl is an academic competition, resembling Jeopardy. Five players face off against another 5 players. They answer 30 tossup questions worth 10 points each. After each tossup, the answering team has a chance to earn 20 total points from a bonus question. There are a total of 20 bonus questions. First team to 301 points wins. A Huge variety of topics and trivia knowledge is required.
Team members were: James Leigh, William Milashoski, Heather Olson, Marc Reiter, Bethany Glock, Dylan Geringer, Allison Nenne, Braiden Skinner, Ryleigh Livingston, Zak Kline, Kristine Tarmann, Jeremy Flahavan, Chelsea Allison, Ashley Fewell and Stephanie Farling. Our coach was Nancy Reiter.
We had practices every Tuesday and Thursday until the regular season began on March 12th. We entered 4 tournaments to check our progress before the season began.
The “Brain Strain” tourney was held at St. Anthony’s school in Streator on 1/27/07. This was a chance to see how well the students performed and how different people would click as a team. We finished 3W & 2L; our two losses were by a combined total of 26 points; not bad for our first try. Marc Reiter and William Milashoski tied for most tossups with 12.
Our next tournament was 2/17 at the Rotary Tournament at Ottawa Shepherd school. We won 7 games with no losses to capture 1st place. We were the first Fieldcrest team to win this tournament and put our name on the traveling trophy. Marc Reiter had the most tossups with 19.
Next we went to Streator Northlawn to compete in the “Knowledge is Power” tournament on March 3rd. We won our pool for a first place trophy. We won all 8 of our matches. William Milashoski had most tossups with 32. Marc Reiter had 24.
The Little Tri-County Conference season was played throughout March & April. Our conference record was 6W and 1L. Counting both games played in a match, our record was 11W and 3L. We were 2nd in conference play. (Non-conferences matches we were 5Wans 1L).
The Little Tri-County Conference Tournament was held at Putnam County Junior High in McNabb on 4/21. We won first place by winning all 4 games. Our only loss in the conference season was to Roanoke-Benson. We redeemed that loss in the title game by winning a very close match—Final score was 215 to 202.
The girls played in the Streator Leading Ladies “Expanding Your Horizons” Tournament at Streator Northlawn. The girls placed 5th with a record of 4W and 1L. We missed the medal round by total point count. It was a very tough tournament proving the “Smart Chicks Rule”. Bethany Glock had most tossups with 19.
IESA Regional play began on Wed, 4/26 at Morris Shabbona School. We won our Regional with a record of 4W 0L. We were so excited to have the first Regional since Toluca Fieldcrest West won in 2000 and 2001.
The Sectional was also played in Morris at the Shabbona School on Monday, 4/30. Our first match was with DeKalb Huntley; after running out of bonus questions we won 230 to 226. A real nail biter.
The 2nd sectional round we played Rockford West. After running out of bonus questions again, we won 239 to 236. The coach was having a “heart attack”.
The 3rd round was against the other undefeated team—Streator Northlawn with a record of 68W and 18 losses. Northlawn had gone to state in 2006 and placed fourth. This was a very tough match. At the half, we were down 132 to 106. We were still in the match. But in the second half that changed. We had a few runs on tossups and won 248 to 177. Our coach survived!
And then, we were off to the IESA State Finals at Heartland Community College in Bloomington on Friday, 5/4. Toluca Fieldcrest West had been to state in 2000 with no wins, but in 2001 they earned 4th place. Bet you didn’t know that! Now another Fieldcrest team was going to state. We were beyond thrilled!
After a rousing send-off by the Wenona Fieldcrest student body, faculty and Principal Roberts encouraging words echoing in our ears and the FMS band playing the school song; we drove off in our big yellow school bus to loud cheers. We were very happy and excited. That was a high point for the entire team.
During the team meeting in the conference, Julie Cochran of the IESA spoke to the entire group. Class A and Class AA competitions were held at the same venue. Class A on the first floor and Class AA on the second floor. There were 16 teams present, 8 in each class.
341 Scholastic Bowl teams started the season in January, 2007. There were 8 left in Class A and 8 left in Class AA. Fieldcrest Middle School was one of the 8 left.
Our first match was against Lincolnshire Daniel Wright, the defending Class AA champion. They were really good. We struggled throughout the match. Playing this team was like running into a buzz saw. They were amazing. We lost 323 to 108. Our hopes for a trophy were dashed. Eventually, Lincolnshire won the entire tournament.
Our second match was against Petersburg PORTA. After the first defeat, we had a struggle with confidence. We lost to PORTA 265 to 179.
Our third match was against Quincy Junior High with an enrollment of 1000 students. Not wanting to lose all three games we worked hard and pulled together to try to win. At the half, we were behind 49 to 93. We played hard and ended up winning 157-151. The smallest school in Class AA beat the largest school in Class AA.
Our record at state was 1W with 2L. Just making it to the state tournament was a big accomplishment. We held our own against some tough competition. Fieldcrest Middle School moved up to Class AA this year after being Class A since 1992. This was an adjustment but we proved we could play with the “big” schools.
This was an AMAZING year for the Scholastic Bowl team and their coach. Every student on the team participated and contributed at some point throughout the season. They studied hard and worked so well together as a team.
They could get loud, often goofy, but took every match seriously. We did laugh a lot.
We would like to thank the following people: Jill Werkmen for being our moderator for home matches; Diane Tarmann for being our scorekeeper and gopher at the state tournament and for supporting the coach; Bill Reiter for scorekeeping, “stat” keeper and for supporting the coach; Mr. Roberts; Mr Peterson; Mr. DeMay; Deb Harper; Diane Alleman; and past coaches—Denise Duffy and Barb Musovich. We would like to thank Tom Heidenreich for buses and drivers; Rose Lutz for our entry fees and Julie May for being so positive. Thank you to Mr. Vincent. The Wenona Fire Department and Officer Rick Butler for our escort after our sectional win.
Thank you to our loyal group of fans—our grandparents, parents and siblings. We were always “under the radar” but you never let us down!
Most of all we would like to thank every teacher we ever had. Every teacher at South, West and East helped teach us some thing that we used in this season.
A special thank you from your coach for your endless studying of your study guides, for answering endless tossups and bonus questions. Even though you rarely were quiet, you did listen and learned a lot. You never quit. I told you in January that I wanted to go to state and you did it. You did everything I asked of you and more. You are amazing kids.
The team's final record was 46-8. So next time somebody makes a comment about kids not working hard towards a goal, tell them about us. And next time, you hear the comment that Fieldcrest is a “jock school”, remember the Scholastic Bowl team in the spring of 2007 when “Smart Kids Ruled”.