Moorpark Team Captures Super Quiz

Moorpark High School continued its domination of the oral Super Quiz portion of the Ventura County Academic Decathlon on Saturday, clinching the event and beating its nearest opponent by 10 points.

The high school, the 1999 national decathlon champion, now has a near-perfect nine-year winning streak in the fast-paced relay, having lost only once in that time to perennial rival Simi Valley High School in 1996.

“All our work totally paid off,” said Moorpark team member Mike Morimoto, who correctly answered his 10 multiple-choice questions on religion, psychology and philosophy. “I’m proud of the team.”

The game-show style event counts for only 5% of the Academic Decathlon’s total score, but a victory in the oral Super Quiz often points to the overall winner of the tournament, which will be announced in a ceremony today at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

The winner of the county title will advance to the state finals in Los Angeles next month.

On Saturday, hundreds packed the Oxnard High School gymnasium to watch the contest. The 20 teams from 15 high schools--five schools fielded two teams--answered questions that ranged from religious doctrine and custom to the theories of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and the philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes.

County schools Supt. Chuck Weis read the questions aloud, then students had seven seconds to mark their answers.

One question out of the 30 asked stumped nearly every contestant: “The asvamedha was an extremely rare Aryan ceremony performed only for kings and involved the ritual sacrifice of a ....?”

When Weis read the answer--a horse--the teams and fans let out a collective groan.

Questions answered correctly drew cheers and stomping feet. The Oxnard team performed mini-waves and flashed signs that spelled out Oxnard.

The pressure was palpable. Some students crossed themselves or prayed. Others sat nervously jiggling their feet between questions.

“They give you so little time,” said Oxnard High senior Brett DeSalvo. “And they hold your score up, and almost everyone knows whether you got it right.”

The county Academic Decathlon, in its 19th year, is a 10-event contest spread over two weekends during which students are tested on a variety of subjects, including math, science, economics and art.

The tournament has emerged as the premiere scholastic competition in the country. The national finals will be held in Anchorage, Alaska, in April.

In the last eight years, Moorpark and Simi Valley high schools have dominated the contest, trading off the county title so often that other high schools have been seemingly shut out.

But after clinching the state championship last year, Simi Valley was unable to recruit a coach, and the east county titan did not field a team this year.

Students often start prepping for the contest in the summer, and coaches can work for hundreds of hours tutoring and researching material.

In Simi Valley’s absence, other high schools saw an opportunity. Indeed, the early rounds of the Super Quiz on Saturday looked promising for the Santa Susana and Camarillo high school teams.

But in the third and final round, the Moorpark team answered nearly every question correctly and quickly outpaced them.

“[My team’s] not smarter than anyone else in the county,” said Moorpark coach Larry Jones, whose charges were studying up to 30 hours a week, in addition to tackling their regular schoolwork. “They just bonded. They love each other and I love them.”

Santa Susana coach Peter Huybers said he was pleased that his top team came in second, and he still held out hope that his players’ overall score could beat Moorpark’s.

“Moorpark is good, you know, but at least we’re on their tail,” he said.