The 2025-2026 scholastic bowl team’s season recently came to a close. The varsity team won 24 out of the 47 matches and the junior varsity team won seven out of the 22 matches, with an average of 6.5 tossup questions per match and 20 tossups per match on average. The team got more than 25% of all available tossups during the season. The top five members of the team in terms of questions answered correctly were junior Jacob Straw with 139, junior Owen Ports with 86, freshman Jackson Lyon with 56, senior Hazel Pham with 35, and senior Eve Bentkowski with 33.
AP biology teacher Nicole Schlemmer coached the team for her third year, leading the team through multiple difficult tournaments including The Tiger Cup and the Masonic tournament.
Senior Eve Bentkowski stated, “Mrs. Schlemmer is 85% of the reason I joined Scholastic Bowl. She’s endlessly inspiring and uplifting and even when we lose a match, we’re always smiling by the time we get back to the bus due to her lighthearted nature. She, along with the rest of my team members, has made Scholastic Bowl an activity that I will forever look fondly upon.”
The scholastic bowl season awards, which were given out at the end of the banquet, represented the best the team had to offer, with five awards being handed out to the most notable members of the team. Award winners were Straw, who won top tossups, Lyon, who won top contributor, Lyon and Senior Leila Anderson, won most improved for varsity and junior varsity respectively, Ports who won team spirit, Pham and Eden won most valuable player for junior varsity and varsity respectively.
The team had an excellent time playing matches together, and also had an open and inclusive nature, with Lyon saying, “Scholastic Bowl is where I somehow found all of the best people in the school concentrated in one spot.”
Schlemmer agrees, saying, “One thing that I love about our team is how open, inclusive and welcoming my players are to each other and new members of the team. We can compete in any combination of players and they are constantly hyping each other up during competition. They are all different and excel in different categories, which provides great harmony and chemistry when we are playing.”
A special shoutout to the seniors of the team that played their last season this year with a team that meant a lot to them: Anderson, Bentkowski, Eden, Pham, and Karina Grande,
