The Mathews High School Scholastic Bowl and forensics teams are both moving on in post-season competition this weekend.
The Scholastic Bowl team is entered as the top-seeded team in Saturday’s state tournament at the College of William and Mary, while the forensics team will be competing the same day for the Region A title at West Point High School.
Scholastic Bowl
On Feb. 4, the MHS Scholastic Bowl team competed at the regional tournament. The team won first place for the first time in the past six years. This victory followed the team’s first-place finish at the Tidewater District tournament and second place in the regular season.
Scholastic Bowl is an academic competition that tests knowledge of history, science, math, current events and pop culture. It consists of two toss-up rounds and one round of questions directed to each team.
Mathews High School has had a stellar season. They had a regular season record of 6-2 and then coasted through the district tournament. At the Region A tournament, Mathews easily defeated the top-seeded team and continued to win against every opponent. While facing Nandua High School in the last round of the double elimination tournament, they lost focus and suffered a significant loss. However, they pulled it together in the close final match, beating Nandua by only 10 points.
This year’s team is relatively young. It is coach John Corrigan’s first year and the team has only one senior, Brandon LaPointe, and two juniors, Allison Scribe and Glenn Musgrove. Sophomores Chelsea Jones, Elizabeth Ransone and Clay Moughon, and freshman Caleb Selph make up the rest of the squad. Moughon earned second-team All-District honors and Scribe was named district and regional MVP.
Forensics
The MHS forensics team, meanwhile, competed at the Tidewater District meet on Feb. 8 at West Point High School. They were awarded the Sportsmanship Award and all team members took home honors.
Forensics is a VHSL activity that judges one’s public speaking ability. It differs from acting in the lack of costumes or props. Readings are typically no longer than 10 minutes. There are varied categories that test different skills. Some pieces are memorized, some are written a few minutes before reading, some are funny, some are sad, and some require a partner.
Duo partners Jason Williams and Jonah West won first place in the Humorous Duo Interpretation category. Tyler Bass and Elizabeth Ransone won second place in Humorous Dramatic Interpretation and Impromptu Speaking, respectively. Allison Scribe won third place for Prose Interpretation.