The thrill as difficult questions are asked, the sounds of buzzers are pressed, and answers are confidently stated for the crowd can only be matched by the feelings of Cardinal Clash, the annual four teachers vs. four students quiz-bowl-style event run by the Academic Challenge club was held Mar. 6 and Mar.7 in the auditorium.

Senior Omar Uraimov has been on the Academic Challenge quiz bowl team since freshman year. He benefited greatly from his experience in Academic Challenge and from participating in Cardinal Clash.

“Academic challenge encourages me to learn new things and keep them in my head,” Uraimov said. “Cardinal Clash was my first time competing in front of an audience that big, so it was pretty exciting.”

Uraimov’s knowledge helped the team succeed even outside of Cardinal Clash. His well-rounded strengths have been a major part of this in area and national competitions.

“I am usually the captain of the B team, which is like our second team, and I had some experience coming into Academic Challenge since I did it in middle school,” Uraimov said. “I am a jack of all trades, and I bring leadership.”

A main source of excitement during Cardinal Clash was the friendly rivalry between Uraimov and SL math and physics teacher Sergio Leal. Uraimov explained his excitement for the event.

“I was pretty excited about actually getting to compete after watching the past three years. Also, I got to compete against Leal,” Uraimov said. “I was his student in 10th grade IB SL math, and I asked him if he wanted to participate in Cardinal Clash that year. Since then, he has been competing every year. We have been waiting to finally play against each other until now.”

Leal was also very interested in competing against Uraimov. He gave insight into their connection.

“He was my student two years ago, and I was his mentor for his extended essay,” Leal said. “I felt like we had developed an interesting dynamic. It was nice to compete against him in the spirit of competition.”

Though this was Leal’s first year playing against Uraimov, he has played in the past. Leal’s experience gave him the ability to be the teacher’s team captain this year.

“I had competed before, and on the first day the teachers decided I was going to be the captain,” Leal said. “Being there in the midst of everything was thrilling.”

Another reason Leal enjoyed the event was being able to balance his strengths with the other teachers. He described this working relationship during the competition.

“I was able to answer some of the questions quickly because I was used to playing and had developed strategies,” Leal said. “It was always fun working with other members of the faculty because they were chosen based on their strengths, and it was always good to work with people who were experts in their field.”

The experiences behind Cardinal Clash provided deeper connections between teachers and students. In addition, Cardinal Clash gave students once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Uraimov described how his favorite experience made him better as a person.

“Our student’s team captain was supposed to start the game with us, but he decided to let me have captain duties and sat out the first half,” Uraimov said. “That kind of threw us into the fire, but it was nice because I got to see how I fared as a leader in front of an audience.”