“When we first got to the competition, the atmosphere was tense. However, I was not nervous,” said senior Areen Andreasian. “I was trying to help my fellow teammates keep their nerves in check. We had a competition to win.”

On Monday, Clark’s Scholastic Bowl team once again participated in the annual Scholastic Bowl Competition at 7 p.m. in Glendale High School’s auditorium along with the district’s other high schools. This 22nd Annual GUSD Scholastic Bowl is a quiz game where students are tested on their essay writing skills in addition their knowledge of different academic subjects. Each team first writes an essay, then in the first round of the competition team members collaborate before responding to the trivia question and display their answer on a piece of white paper. The second and final round is where each team member must hit the buzzer the fastest to answer a question independently.

Returning members of the team — Areen Andreasian, Alexander Popovic, Bhavin Shah and Brijal Shah — were joined by their new teammate, Mari Jrbashyan. The Crescenta Valley team had a team of all juniors for the first time just as Clark did last year. This year’s Scholastic Bowl Competition also welcomed a new quizmaster, veteran anchorman Harold Greene and Clark’s very own senior Arvin Sarkissian, Student Board Member, to lead everyone in the pledge of allegiance.

“They held their own,” said team coach Susan Newcomer. “it was very close through the most of it just a couple points difference between each school.” At one point in the competition there was a four-way tie of 68 points. All schools missed a question and therefore lost a point, and that called for yet another four-way tie.

The students prepared months in advance for the competition. “They met at lunchtime for the past several months and studied practice questions,” Newcomer said.

Sophomore Brijal Shah said that if she could change anything she would have began training even more ahead of time and to hit the buzzer faster so that other students wouldn’t have the chance to steal a question. “Last year I was new to the team and I was a lot more nervous,” Shah said. “This year I was already used to it so I wasn’t as scared.”

The competition ended with a tie for first place between Glendale and Crescenta Valley High Schools, Hoover at third place, and Clark Magnet last. If Clark had gotten just one more question right that first place trophy would have scored Clark a two-year win streak. “It was a beautiful experience, great contest, but terrible result,” Andreasian said. “Right after we lost, I just left.”