ASU Academic Bowl team takes regionals

Group heads to national contest in Minnesota to compete in April

 by Allison Gatlin
 published on Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Andrea Bloom / THE STATE PRESS

A BIG WIN: The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Academic Bowl Team, from left, Ken Lan, Eli Bliss, Carlos Ross and Erin Hutchinson, celebrate after defeating the WP Carey School of Business in the finals of the ASU Academic Bowl Tuesday Oct. 23rd, 2007.

The ASU Academic Bowl team reigned victorious at the College Bowl Regional Championship last week with a record of nine wins and one loss.

The team, from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, competed Feb. 21-23 in Colorado Springs against teams from New Mexico State, University of New Mexico, University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, University of Arizona and Weber State University.

With the regional win, the team was able to solidify its place in the national competition, which will take place April 25-27 at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn.

The group was undefeated in six rounds on Friday, achieving a high score of 430 points to New Mexico State's 70 points.

On Saturday, the intercollegiate team lost only one round, against the University of New Mexico.

But the group was able to bounce back with a score of 440 points — the team's best score of the tournament — against the University of New Mexico, said team captain Carlos Ross.

"We saved the best for last, recovering after our only loss of the tourney," said Ross, a Japanese senior, in an e-mail. "In the final round, we not only posted our best score of the tournament, but had to delay the game with little over a minute left, because they had run out of questions for us to answer and needed to get more."

Questions centered on subjects including the Green Bay Packers and Stevie Wonder, he said, noting that that the team even received 10 points for knowing the lyrics to the song, "I Just Called To Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder.

"On Friday night, Kenneth Lan asked me to look up information about Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake on a whim and, by coincidence, they asked a question about Drake in the final round," Ross said.

The best moment, Ross said, was when he buzzed into a question about a spruce tree — the answer to which he had learned during his work with Leslie Landrum at ASU's Vascular Plants Herbarium.

"It's partially a matter of keeping track of current records," Ross said. "You can bet they'll ask us about Kosovo, Heath Ledger, Fidel Castro, et cetera. And partially just paying attention to everything around you because you just don't know what might come in handy."

Another team member, Erin Hutchinson, a history and global studies senior, said that she was impressed by her teammates throughout the entire tournament.

"I was always surprised at the things my teammates knew," Hutchinson said. "I'd hear the buzzer and see one of my teammates answer, and I'd be surprised at what they knew."

In addition to the wins the team managed against the highly competitive New Mexico State, the team was also very excited to beat the UA team by 160 points, said Eli Bliss, an undeclared graduate student and team member.

"We're all part of this big rivalry, and it was good to bring it to a new level," Bliss said. "Seeing the scores pretty much matching the football scores just shows us that ASU is better than U of A at this, too."

Reach the reporter at: allison.gatlin@asu.edu.