The Quiz Bowl team placed 49th in nationals last week out of 304 high schools. Members Sidney Chang, Sreedathan Menon, Kevin Li, Jerry Zhang, Patrick Shaw and Letian Li traveled to Atlanta, Georgia from May 26-28 to represent Bellaire.

This marks the highest the team has reached since 2013, where they placed 13th out of 256 other schools. Team captain Letian was pleased with the results, which he said “surpassed [his] expectations.”

“Although we could’ve done better, there were also a few occasions where we got pretty lucky,” Letian said.

Quiz Bowl is a trivia game played between two teams of four people. Each team uses a buzzer to answer the question, and speed and knowledge are critical to amass the most points. As team captain, Letian had added responsibility.

“I have to manage what goes on within a match and decide clock management and who goes on the team,” Letian said. “Since we had many people who specialized in different subjects, I had to choose which players I wanted in, and sometimes I ran the risk of subbing out the person who knew the subjects that came up.”

The team held practices every Tuesday after school year-round and spent the remaining two weeks before nationals preparing everyday. Additionally, members participated in multiple tournaments both online and in-person to gain experience. Sophomore and second-year member Kevin said the hard work paid off.

“It felt great to be a part of such a strong team, and our outstanding performance felt amazing and almost like a dream,” Kevin said.