JERRY CITY – Eastwood celebrated a three-peat Monday.
The school won the Northwest Ohio 7th/8th Grade Quiz Bowl Tournament for the third straight year.
Eastwood defeated Gibsonburg, 72-68.
It also is Ken Perkins’ third year coaching for Eastwood — and coaching three winning teams.
“I have excellent kids, excellent support from their teachers that come all the way up from kindergarten
until the time they get to me. I can take no credit for it. They do all the work,” he said.
“It feels great,” said student Collin Schober about the win. “It feels amazing, especially the last
match. We had previously lost to (Gibsonburg) and to be able to beat a team that we had lost to in the
past felt amazing.”
Eastwood led in the first two sets, 30-22 and 22-16, but fell behind in the third set, 20-30.
“I never thought we’d get this far,” Schober added. “We knew (Gibsonburg) had a couple really good kids
and I didn’t feel the most confident.”
Eastwood was 3-3 against Gibsonburg on the season and he was hoping to be able to face them again,
Perkins said.
“I was hopeful that the kids would rise to the occasion and win those first couple matches and get a
chance to see them again,” Perkins said.
To get to the final, Eastwood beat fourth-ranked Otsego (4-2), 78-32; then rolled over North Baltimore,
which was ranked number one (4-1-1), 98-50.
Perkins’ students practiced twice a week, reading questions – a task made more difficult with the
coronavirus this year that had Eastwood on a hybrid learning model since the start of school.
While he met some team members in person, others would join via Google Meets.
Eric Sander, an eighth-grader, said it was a team effort that took Eastwood to the top once again.
“I would say it’s teamwork because it’s not just one person that pulls the team through. It’s everybody
working together that makes it happen,” he said.
He prefers language arts and math questions.
Neither team got one math question right.
“I feel like they give you a hard question and they don’t give you the time to do it,” Sander said,
adding he thought he could have gotten more correct math answers if he had been given more time.
Teams answered geography, history, literature, math and sports questions.
Gibsonburg’s Isabella Harrison knew it was Japan that was made up of more than 400 inhabited islands and
will be the host of the 2021 Olympics.
Eastwood’s Schober knew the opposite of a husky in clothing sizes was slim.
This is Schober’s first year on the team as an eighth-grader. He said he thought he did pretty well on
the history and geography questions he got, as they are his best subjects.
Neither team knew it was the Boilermakers who were the Big Ten team in West Lafayette, Indiana, or that
Fay Wray was the love interest in the 1933 movie “King Kong.”
Eastwood entered the tournament ranked fifth with a 3-3 record. Gibsonburg had a 4-2 record and was
ranked third.
Gibsonburg’s Anthony Caprara said the questions were a bit harder “but they were still easy to manage.”
“I think we did our best,” Caprara said. “We did all that we could. We definitely worked together as a
team and put in all the effort that we could and we still did a very good job and I’m very proud of this
team.”
Kayla Burg, who coaches at Gibsonburg, said the team practices with the high school team, which will help
her eighth-graders like Caprara transition into the upper-level team.
This is the best they’ve ever done since she started coaching six years ago.
Gibsonburg beat sixth-ranked Lake (1-5), 88-20, then got past second-ranked Elmwood (4-1-1), 80-54.
Members of the Eastwood team also included Eli Bailey, Belle Hayes, Henry Howard, Austin Miller, Carys
Ruck and Eli Smith.
Gibsonburg’s team also included Abigail Montgomery, Zachary Alker and Jacob Alker.
