(April 1, 2010) — On Monday, March 15, Clark’s Varsity Scholastic Bowl Team thought that for the first time in Clark’s history, they had won the annual scholastic bowl. Principal Doug Dall had already hugged Coach Susan Newcomer, and each Hoover member had shaken hands with Clark’s members. Moments later, Clark’s first place was in question, as the judges reconsidered a ruling they had made after the second of three question sessions. The reassessment favored Glendale High School, bringing the score to a tie between GHS and Clark. GHS quickly buzzed in on the tiebreaker, a literature question in reference to the poem Beowulf , securing first place. Urging modesty, Dall told the Clark team to shake hands with the winner. But junior Sayonika Mohanta, who had studied two hours every day for four weeks, is angry about the final ruling. She believes that her team was underrepresented, as there were few audience members cheering Clark on with the same intensity as GHS. “Whoever argued the best would win the competition,” Mohanta said. The question in debate was “What disaster happened at the end of Fahrenheit 451 ?” Originally, Glendale’s answer was “nuclear explosion,” which was not accepted by the judges in place of “nuclear war.” But Newcomer said that even if the original answer had been correct, it would have still been unacceptable for the judges to reverse their previous decision. “If you watch a baseball game, and you get to the ninth inning, you can’t ask the umpire to give back the points lost in the second inning when they already made the decision back then,” Newcomer said. Mohanta is also questioning the fairness of the tiebreaker. She believes that because each school has strengths in certain subjects, the deciding questions should have covered all five. Also, Beowulf is covered in the senior curriculum, and while the GHS team was made up of all seniors, the Clark team consisted of four juniors and one freshman. Last year, a similar situation occurred, in which the judges retracted a decision in favor of CV after GHS appeared to have won. The retraction put CV in the lead, not giving GHS the benefit of a tiebreaker. According to contest coordinator Dianne Roybal, the judges’ decision was discussed in a meeting held a few days after the competition. “There were mixed feelings about that,” Roybal said. At the conclusion of the meeting, it was decided to leave the judgment as it was. “We decided it was the judges’ prerogative,” Roybal said. Newcomer is proud of the Clark team, considering the jump from last year’s fourth place to this year’s second. She was also impressed with how the team took the loss. “I was happy that we conducted ourselves in a professional manner and showed excellent sportsmanship,” Newcomer said.