The JV experience

Maddie Almodovar, Opinion Editor|March 10, 2022

Bonita Vista High’s Quiz Bowl team is divided into two cohorts of students known as varsity and junior varsity (JV). Quiz Bowl’s season is over a two month and a half time period during the winter, consisting of 11 matches. New members in the Quiz Bowl season are often directed into JV to gain the experience and knowledge needed for varsity.

Quiz Bowl Advisor and Accelerated Biology teacher Joseph Szakovits has coached the Quiz Bowl teams for roughly six years. This year’s season has become the first in which he has coached both the varsity and JV students during the same season.

“The goal of JV is to train [students] up so that they’re ready to be in varsity. The major goal is to get everybody comfortable with the system [and] the rules so that they’re ready to join varsity at such time as they’re prepared to do so,” Szakovits said. 

JV Quiz Bowl member and junior Diego Nava joined for his first year this season. He mentions that during his first year, he’s met “cool people” and enjoys the activity of competing to answer trivia questions. In a previous match, he had become particularly excited when he knew the answer to a specific question; “What’s the largest object in the Asteroid Belt, formerly considered a planet?”

“I was ready for [the question] my whole life. It was such an obscure question that no one would’ve gotten, but I knew the answer,” Nava said. “It’s Seres.”

Szakovits experiences similar enthusiasm in the many instances where JV members are asked questions throughout matches. He recalls freshman Victoria Arencibia answering a question relating to biology, specifically a topic he had taught most recently during his classes prior to the match.

“That [question] was something that really got me because it was also the impact of what I was teaching in class. So that was very special,” Szakovits said.

JV Quiz Bowl Team Captain and sophomore Tai Cassel Engen is typically placed in the third seat of a five seat panel during a Quiz Bowl match. After the initial toss-up question is asked both opponents are able to plan a response and share their answers. Once answered the teams are able to move onto the bonus questions. After a team discussion for the bonus question, Cassel Engen is tasked to respond with an answer to the moderator; an adult tasked to read aloud questions from a series packet. Cassel Engen shares that he has come across many experiences by taking the role of Team Captain and answering questions for the team.

“The most notable moments during [a match] are when I miss questions; I tend to get [disappointed in] myself and it’s really fun to be able to competitively answer questions really quickly,” Cassel Engen said. “During our [previous] Olympian [High School] match, I was the only one on our team to answer a toss-up [question], so it was really fun and challenging. Missing questions is actually the most fun and disappointing at the same time.”

JV has currently played 8 matches out of the 11 in their season. From the eight matches they’ve played, they’ve won all but two. There was an instance when the team was unable to play due to their opponent school lacking a JV Quiz Bowl team.

“There’s actually only been one [instance where JV couldn’t play] and that was our match against Hilltop High [School]. Unfortunately, we found out [that they didn’t have a JV team] at the last minute,” Szakovits said.

Aside from matches, scheduling for practices and events have proven to be a challenge for the Quiz Bowl team. Many students are involved with other extracurricular activities other than Quiz Bowl, such as Speech and Debate and sports, resulting in scheduling conflicts. Furthermore, COVID-19 has also affected the attendance of Quiz Bowl members and the number of those available to practice and compete.

“A lot of times we [JV Quizbowl] had teammates not showing up and for a while there, we had three or four people out with COVID, which made it really rough in terms of getting attendance to actually show up for the match,” Cassel Engen said. “We had a couple of matches that almost got canceled because we had a shortage of players.”

Despite the complications the JV team has faced, Szakovits adds that he recognizes the strength behind Quiz Bowl’s JV team based on their performance in the 8 matches they have played thus far. 

“I’ll never forget the first match that we had for JV. It was against Otay Ranch [High School] and historically, [they’re] a strong team. But [even though] for most of them, it was their first match ever, they came out with such confidence and such poise. It felt like a veteran team in their very first match. It’s definitely a special group this year,” Szakovits said. 

Quiz Bowl JV practices are held every Wednesday during lunch in Szakovits’ room 302. With the seldom time commitment and supportive team, JV sets students up for varsity. According to Szakovits, JV is an opportunity for students to show off what they know while also having a “great camaraderie.”

“JV is a fun team experience and a very small time commitment. One of the reasons I was able to join was because it’s such a small time commitment for so much fun. It’s a nice opportunity to be able to flex your trivia knowledge and have fun with the team,” Cassel Engen said.