On Feb. 5and Feb. 6, the Academic Challenge club hosted its annual Cardinal Clash, a competition in which teachers and students battled against one another in a fierce match of wits and knowledge. In an intense quiz bowl point style buzzer-round format, four teachers faced off against four students who belonged to the Academic Challenge team. On the first day of the event, the teacher’s lineup featured Mr. Bean, Mr. Moore, Mr. Mazzoni and Mr. Mintz, and the student team was composed of senior Ridge Liu, senior Patrick Girardet, senior Colin Shi and senior Aman Narayan. Despite an impressive teacher from Mr. Bean, a Bellaire alumni who was part of the Academic Challenge team when he was in high school, the student team defeated the teacher team in a fashion similar to that of the Seahawk’s crushing victory over the Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, by a final score of 755 – 140. The second day’s matchup included Ms. Anderson, Mr. Bean, Mr. Monzon, and Ms. Nocca taking on the same student lineup as the first day’s competition, but with Narayan switched out with senior Jinchen Zou. The teachers put on a better showing than the previous day, but were ultimately unable to beat the student team. The students went 2 – 0 and continued the student’s historic dominance over the teachers.

Shi describes his experience as a competitor during the event.

“There were a lot of students who came and watched us,” Shi said. “They were very enthusiastic and supportive, and that made everything a huge success.”