JERRY CITY – It was a sweet win Thursday for an elementary quiz bowl team that has never won a
tournament.
After entering the 2020 Northwest Ohio Grades 5-6 Quiz Bowl Tournament undefeated, Gibsonburg’s Hilfiker
Elementary rolled through the competition and ended its year 7-0.
The team defeated Elmwood Elementary 128-36 and then North Baltimore’s Powell Elementary 82-46 to take
the title.
Hilfiker coach Erika Montgomery said she was not at all confident her team could beat Powell again,
despite being the victor 102-74 earlier this season.
“We weren’t taking anything for granted,” she said.
Montgomery said her team has made it to the championship round once before and the semi-finals twice but
being a fifth-grade team against sixth graders, “we didn’t have that advantage.”
Elly Evarts said her best topic is sports — she did answer Michael Jordan to the question of who won six
championships with the Chicago Bulls. She agreed there weren’t many sports questions, but the ones there
were she got correct.
“I was really happy, I really hoped we win,” Evarts said. “I knew Powell was going to be good, but I
really thought we could win.”
Jacob Aelker said he prefers geo-politics and history, and although he was not really concerned about not
winning, he did have a moment of doubt.
“I did have a suspicion we might lose,” he said.
Ben Pack, co-coach for Powell, said that his team had lost to Hilfiker earlier in the season, but was
hopeful prior to the rematch.
“We were excited about the chance to play them again,” he said. “They’re a really good team. They really
anticipate the questions well, and they did that again today.
“Lots of credit for them.”
Team member Daniel Hinkle said the match against Hilfiker was “really hard.”
“But we tried our best. I think we did good,” he said.
While Hinkle’s specialty is math, the questions Thursday were difficult, and he didn’t attempt to answer
any of them.
Hinkle also had hopes they could beat Hilfiker after losing to them earlier in the year. They entered the
tournament 3-2.
“But we didn’t, and that’s fine,” he said.
Powell beat Bowling Green Christian Academy, who had a 3-2 record entering the tournament, 96-48, to
advance.
Students faced questions on geography, literature, astronomy, spelling, music and current events.
Neither championship round team knew it was James Bond who was featured in such movies as “Dr. No” and
“License to Kill.”
Powell’s Noah Vanlerberg knew Jesse James was the outlaw shot by Robert Ford for the reward money.
Although math is not his topic of choice, Aelker correctly answered $105 to the question of the total if
someone buys two $18 blouses and four $16 shirts and pays 5% sale tax.
Neither team knew R. Kelly was the singer who had a chart-topping hit with “I Believe I Can Fly” but is
best known for his legal troubles.
Otsego Elementary and Fostoria Elementary, both 1-4 for the season, didn’t attend the tournament.
Quiz bowl coordinator Sandra Laborie said she did not know why the schools decided to not attend.
“We still had four out of the six (attend) and … I think we still had a good time and we still had
challenging teams,” she said.
The event was scheduled to start at 4 p.m., two hours after Gov. Mike DeWine mandated the closure of all
schools next week.
As a response to the virus concerns, Laborie provided cleaning cloths for students to wipe down their
buzzers and table area between rounds.
“Whatever makes you feel safe,” she said.
In addition to Evarts and Aelker, Hilfiker’s winning team members included Harry Wilson, Olivia Reed,
Olivia Belcher, Evelyn Salgado, Haydin Brown, Derek Reed, Miles Thomas, Sydney Alldredge and Macy
Kohler.
Members of Powell’s team, in addition to Hinkle and Vanlerberg, were Karlee Livingston, Jack Clark,
Kamryn Leffler, Attlee Rowlinson, Jesse Whittacre and Thain Spangenberg.
