The Gibsonburg team included, from left, Sofia Rogers, Scott Bartlett, Jacob Aelker and Brennen Cummings. Aelker earned the Lynette Butler award for his contributions to quiz bowl.
Eastwood’s Noah Sikora, from left, Sydney Bell, Scott McKenzie and Brenden Dulaney prepare for the championship round.
BLOOMDALE – For the first time in six years, Eastwood did not go home with the winning trophy in the Northwest Ohio Quiz Bowl Tournament for grades 7-8.
Gibsonburg defeated top-ranked Eastwood at Thursday’s tournament, held at Elmwood Local Schools.
Eastwood’s reign started in 2018 with a win over Otsego, 96-86. The next two years, the team beat Bowling Green Christian Academy, 64-62 in 2019 and 86-82 in 2020.
In 2021, Eastwood beat Gibsonburg, 72-68. In 2002, it was another win against BGCA, 100-44, that gave them the title.
Gibsonburg defeated Eastwood, 116-86, to take the 2023 championship trophy.
Gibsonburg dominated Eastwood in the first round, scoring 30 more points. But Eastwood won the second round, outscoring their opponent by eight points.
Eastwood fell in the second round, 28-36, to allow Gibsonburg to get the win.
Andy Aelker, in his first year coaching the Gibsonburg team, said his game plan was simple.
“To put Jacob against the best players on the other team,” he said. Jacob Aelker had scored 80% of Gibsonburg’s points leading into the tournament.
Coach Aelker said the team members answered more questions correctly Thursday than they had all year. His team was ranked fourth entering the tournament.
Eastwood Coach Ken Perkins said there were several really good teams in the league, so he knew it was going to be difficult to repeat.
“I knew (Gibsonburg) had some really strong players and I knew it was going to be a close match. When we played them during the regular season, we won by either four or eight points,” he said.
Jacob Aelker said he didn’t feel any pressure being the highest scorer on his team.
He said his fifth-grade team won the championship three years ago, and it feels “pretty good” to hold another championship trophy.
Aelker also won the Lynette Butler award for his contributions to quiz bowl. Team members are nominated by their coaches.
Other members of Gibsonburg’s team included Miles Thomas, Scott Bartlett, Brennen Cummings, Sofia Rogers, Zoe Halbelsen and Malachi Brough.
“We have a really good team,” said Eastwood’s Brayden Barnhart. “We’ve got a lot of smart people around here.”
Zander Napierala said he thought Eastwood, in the final round, would face one of the two teams it had lost to during the season.
“But it ended up being Gibsonburg. I was very surprised. It seems that Gibsonburg has improved a lot,” he said.
Other members of the Eastwood team included Sydney Bell, Jacob Connell, Brenden Dulaney, Scott McKenzie, Noah Sikora and Oliver St. Clair.
There were four quarterfinal matches.
Eastwood defeated Lake, 90-66, and Elmwood defeated Woodmore, 102-62.
Bowling Green Christian Academy beat Otsego, 82-52, and Gibsonburg defeated North Baltimore, 92-64.
Eastwood then defeated Elmwood, 128-68, and Gibsonburg squeaked by BGCA, 90-86, to make it to the championship round.
Teams faced questions on archaeology, authors and novels, sports, sentence structure, mythology and math.
Each match consisted of three rounds and each round had 25 questions. Teams got four points for a correct answer; a team that answered correctly on redirect got two points.
