Knowledge Bowl season interrupted

Out of every extracurricular activity, Knowledge Bowl may be the least known. Only five U.S. states have Knowledge Bowl at the high school level.

What most people know is that it is a school activity and, like others, its season was curtailed last week when all winter seasons were canceled.

So, what exactly is Knowledge Bowl?

Knowledge Bowl is all about knowledge - as implied in the name - and being able to remember those facts and produce them on the spot, plus it's fun, challenging, and you learn a lot.

Each meet consists of five rounds, one written and four oral. The written round is a 60-question multiple choice test similar to one you'd take at school. Five members per team can participate in the written round and each team has about 60 minutes to finish the test.

The oral rounds are slightly different. Only four members per team can participate, and there are 45 questions per round. Teams compete directly against each other. In oral rounds, a reader presents each question and teams can buzz in at any time using the buzz-in strips that are spread across their table.

Scoring is simple. For each correct answer a team gets, written or oral, their team receives one point. At the end of the meet, points are added up to determine the final rankings.

Cloquet competes against 39 other teams in the region for the 12 available spots in the regional tournament. The 12 teams are chosen by each team's combined meet scores after three regular season meets.

The regional meet works exactly the same as a regular season meet except instead of there being four oral rounds, there are five. Besides finding out which teams are the best in the area at the regional tournament, there is also more at stake.

The teams that place in the top three at the regional tournament advance to the state tournament. In a normal year, the state tournament is held at Cragun's Resort on Gull Lake near Brainerd in April.

This year's senior team competed at the state tournament as sophomores in 2018.

After missing state last year, this squad had their eyes locked on another trip to the state tournament this year. Unfortunately, this year's regional and state tournaments were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"We couldn't make it last year," Eric Elwood said. "But this year we're a lot more focused on our goal of making it back to state."

The all-senior team consisting of Dom Jones, Evan McWilliams, Jordan Allen, Jake Sutherland and Eric Elwood has been together since middle school.

"They've meant a lot to the high school team since they've been here," head coach Mary Jacobson said of the senior team. "They went to state as sophomores and have been leading the high school team ever since."

After placing their three regular season meets, this senior team was the third-ranked team heading into the regional tournament, which would've been held March 18, in Mountain Iron.

Cloquet also had an all-sophomore team that was supposed to compete in this year's regional tournament, consisting of Oliva Macaulay, Lleyton Doty, Jack Liang, Jake Mertz, Olivia Jameson and Lydia Stone. Sophomore Isaac Strand and senior Anthony McKay would have competed as alternates for the regional meet.

In addition, Cloquet's Knowledge Bowl team had 11 other participants who competed this year, including Ethan Drouillard, Sam Brenner, Caleb Swanson, Josh South, Wyatt Line, Eli Lah, Nathan Clement, Aaron Peterson, Parker McCarthur, Tyler Harms-Synkiew and Ethan Gunderson.

"Knowledge Bowl is a great activity to be involved in. You get to hang out with other people that have similar interests as you," Jacobson said. "It's just fun."