COVINGTON, Ga. — Eastside High School’s Academic Team will compete in the Georgia Regional Academic Bowl (GRAB) State Championship after its third-place win in the varsity competition at the Griffin RESA Regional Academic Bowl.
The team will compete for the GRAB State Championship Feb. 25 at Apalachee High School in Winder for the second year in a row.
Members of the Eastside Academic Team include Colin McGowan, Simon Reid, Breanna Epps, Daniel Bartello, Aaron Mull, Katie Bryan, Alexander Amerson, Jessica Wilson, Jonathan Crawford and Trevor Hay.
High school teams from Butts, Fayette, Henry, Lamar, Newton, Pike, Spalding and Upson counties competed at the regional event for bragging rights — and the chance to take part in the state competition. All varsity and junior varsity teams finishing first, second, or third earned a chance to represent the Griffin RESA region at the GRAB Academic Bowl.
The Regional Academic Bowl competition featured five rounds from September through January that were taken by teams asynchronously — not at the same time. Teams had to answer 100 questions in 60 minutes during the round window each month. Ten players could have competed at a time.
Questions came from a wide range of academic subjects, from science and math to history, literature and geography, as well as some popular culture and current events, said Eric Adams, Academic Team coach for Eastside High.
Teams were ranked by how many questions they answered correctly, he said. A cumulative ranking was maintained throughout the competition.
“Although we prefer the more traditional style of quiz bowl with buzzers and facing off against one opponent at a time, we participate in the Griffin RESA in the hopes that we finish in the top four and thereby qualify for the GRAB State Championship tournament, where teams qualify from several RESAs tournaments across the state," Adams said.
“The GRAB state championship is formatted in the traditional quiz bowl competition style," he said.
Jeff Cher, principal of Eastside High School, said he was “extremely proud of our Academic Team."
“The Eastside Academic Team has an incredible history when it comes to quiz bowl competitions and this year’s team has continued in that winning tradition. They represented us well at the regional competition and I have no doubt they will make us proud as they represent our school, our district and our region in the state championship.”
The Newton College & Career Academy (NCCA) team just missed out on the state competition with its fourth place finish in the junior varsity part of the competition. NCCA team members included Jackson Allred, Francisco Alvarado, Nevaeh Craven, and Gauresh Vittal.
