Scholar's Bowl comes so close...yet so far
The answer was right there in front of them. Literally. The Belle Plaine Scholars’ Bowl team took themselves to the Regional competition in Arma, Kansas. It was a three hour drive one way. If they placed in the top three teams overall, they could advance to the state competition.
All of the teams were divided into two pools. Belle Plaine had to place top three in their pool to advance to the finals. After seven rounds, Belle Plaine emerged confident and strong with a record of 6-1. They placed second in their pool and were advancing to the finals.
“I wasn’t too surprised at that point,” said Kyle Carter, sr., captain of the Varsity Scholar’s Bowl team. “I was pretty confident that we’d make it this far. Now the real competition was going to start.”
Carter turned out to be right. The Belle Plaine team was now in a pool of the top 6 teams in the region. They were pretty evenly matched. With five rounds, Belle Plaine was aiming to win at least 3 of them. They won their first match against Douglass by five points. Their next three rounds were losses, and two of them were lost only by a single question. The real annoyance to the team was the last question of the previous round, which would have let them win; they all knew it but hesitated to buzz in.
In the final competition, Belle Plaine defeated Neodesha, giving them a final record of 2-3. The only way to be advancing would be for a phenomenal tiebreaker. Unfortunately, that did not come up. The 2009-2010 Scholars’ Bowl season was over for Belle Plaine. They left Arma with heads down but hopes up. After all, they still have next year.
