Monday, March 28, 2022

CVU Scholars Bowl Wins 2022 State Championship!

We're thrilled to share another celebration from CVU! As the RoboHawk's coach Olaf Verdonk said, "CVU has some awesome 'sport for the mind' state champions this year!"

Here's a guest post written by CVU's Scholars Bowl coach, John Bennett. 


CVU's Scholars Bowl team concluded an epic season by winning the 2022 Vermont State Championship. In matches held at Montpelier High School on Saturday March 26, the team won 3 playoffs matches to claim the championship. This is the second state championship for CVU Scholars Bowl, having previously won in 2007.

The team won a quarterfinal match over host Montpelier and then faced off against Hanover in a semi final match. CVU got out to a quick lead and finished strong to win convincingly, setting up a final showdown with South Burlington. South Burlington had previously defeated us 3 times this season.

However, this time CVU was able to get out to a big early lead, and held off two comeback attempts by South Burlington to win the match and the championship, 385-315. This was truly one of the best sets of matches I've ever seen one of my teams play in 27 years of coaching. We faced top notch competition and only briefly trailed once in any of the three matches. Leading the way was another outstanding performance by our all-time lead scorer Evan McMahan, who finished his Vermont career with 1,136 questions answered over 4 years. All 7 other players contributed to our victories with clutch answers and key support.

By winning the state championship, we have earned the right to represent Vermont in national championship competition. This will be the 3rd straight year we have been able to do this, but the first time in person. I am in the process of making the plans for having our team play in the High School National Championships, this year held in Atlanta over Memorial Day weekend. We have a 32-4 record this season, the second-best winning percentage in team history.

This championship was a team effort all around and the product of many contributing factors. I am especially glad that we could win this for Dan Shepardson's final year as activities director, as he has greatly supported Scholars Bowl in many ways over the years. I also want to recognize the great assistance I have received this year and in past years from Kiran McCormick, Chris Smith, and Katie Mack helping to coach the team and read questions at events. I also will note that without a chance to rebuild and renew our program during C3 time this year, this championship likely doesn't happen. Finally, I want everyone to know this is a championship for our whole school district. You are the teachers and advisors of these students, who give them the learning and example to be successful at Scholars Bowl and show off what CVU has to offer.

The following players represented CVU on Saturday-

Evan McMahan, Aidan Devine, Ben Fox, Jake Potter (12th grade)
Kai Jenkins-Mui, Ava Rohrbaugh, Keaton St. Martin (11th grade)
Elias Leventhal (10th grade)

Congratulations to the CVU Scholars Bowl team and all involved for this incredible accomplishment. 


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