Trabuco Hills Team Tied for Second Place in Quiz

It’s down to the wire for Trabuco Hills High School, one of three schools tied for second place Saturday in the public, question-and-answer portion of the California Academic Decathlon’s tension-filled Super Quiz.

In an extremely tight tournament, the three-way tie for second-place between Trabuco Hills High School, Alemany High School of Mission Hills and Simi Valley High School was just one razor-thin point behind the two-way tie for first place between defending champions from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills and a Fresno County high school.

The final results will not be announced until an awards banquet today, leaving the nine-student team from Trabuco Hills understandably nervous--and optimistic.

“On some of the things, they felt positive, on some other things, they were a little bit worried,” Trabuco Hills team coach Janet Hooper said Saturday night while the students relaxed a bit at a dance held for decathlon participants.

But she conceded she wasn’t about to guess the outcome and instead praised the students who juggle school work and other responsibilities while cramming for the event.

“You go crazy trying to speculate, so we don’t really do that,” Hooper said. “Everybody works as hard as they can, given the amount of time and all the other responsibilities they have,” she added.

Officials said the finish was one of the closest in the 18-year history of the state academic tournament. The top five schools beat out 38 others in the Super Quiz’s public portion, in which students from each team take turns trying to answer 10 questions correctly as their friends and family cheer.

Trabuco Hills High School went into the state tournament with the second highest score of 47,102, behind El Camino.

Both El Camino and Edison High School of Fresno County received 57 out of 60 points in Saturday’s grueling relay quiz. Close behind were Trabuco Hills, Alemany High, and Simi High with 56 points each.

So tension-filled was the contest that Hooper stayed away from her students to avoid making them nervous.

“I just get so nervous about this and I don’t want to affect them,” Hooper said during the quiz, wringing her hands. “They’re so uptight already.”

During the three-hour break between lunch and the start of the public Super Quiz, the team was edgy and eager to return to their quiet hotel rooms to get in some last-minute studying.

At the competition, the three students who made up the team’s scholastic group pulled off a perfect score and aced each of the 10 questions they were given. That helped ease Hooper’s nerves.

“Super Quiz in my opinion is the most valuable for the team score,” Hooper said. “We’ve worked real hard.”

The two-part Super Quiz was the final and toughest event in the two-day tournament. The first section included a written multiple-choice test. The second half--the only section open to the public--was a rowdier, College Bowl-like competition.

This year’s Super Quiz topic was “The Information Revolution/Communication and Culture.” Students were peppered with 30 multiple-choice questions that included: “Which department of the federal government funded the development of the Internet?”

As part of the competition, the nine-member teams took written exams in economics, fine arts, literature, math, science and social sciences. They also delivered impromptu and prepared speeches, wrote essays and participated in interviews with a panel of judges.

The winner of the state Academic Decathlon will go on to the national championship, which will be held April 18-20 in St. George, Utah.