The Morgan School’s been in a bit of a buzz lately due to a club’s recent accomplishment, more specifically with the Morgan Trivia Bowl’s recent win in the shoreline trivia tournament, where the club took home first place against many other schools in the state. With this win, the question comes up on how this win came to be, and more importantly, how the club can go on to win in the future with many of its senior members leaving Morgan?
The Trivia Bowl started about two and a half decades ago, and has been a staple of the Morgan school since. It mainly acts as a way to allow students to show off their knowledge of various topics in a more competition based setting, such as playing against other students, or even other schools. How it works right now is that once a week on Fridays, members of the club are split into two teams, where they each have to compete to see who gets the most points based on the questions asked and knowledge they know. And monthly, the Morgan School goes head-to-head virtually with other shoreline schools such as HK and Old Lyme to see how other schools and students compare.
“We meet once a week and we call it practice, but it’s just a lot of fun,” Eric Bergman, the current advisor of the Trivia Bowl explained. “I ask trivia questions from a variety of different subjects, and we create teams. We have a buzzer system, we keep score, and once a month, we do a virtual meet with another shoreline team, and we go head-to-head.”
While seeming a bit intense, the Trivia Bowl Club is actually fairly engaging for its members, since they don’t mind having fun during the club every once in a while. “We split into two teams and Mr. Bergman asks the questions, and usually funny stuff happens,” said Rylen Robertson, a freshman. “Someone will answer something wrong on purpose or just blurt out something wrong. It’s overall a good time, because there’s no tension or anything.” The club also lasts a bit under an hour right after school ends, until about 3 PM. This time is mainly used to hone the skills of the club and to build a sense of teamwork among the students, as it can hone their trivia skills while also allowing them to have fun with friends and teammates, which is why various members wanted to join in the first place.
“I thought it would be very fun to join a club with friends,” said Harvey Rush, a freshman in the club explained. “I thought it would be a very fun after school activity.”
“I joined it earlier this year when clubs were being selected, and I decided to sign up with two of my friends.” Rylen said. “We thought it would be fun just taking a shot with something after school.”
Recently, the club has competed in a shoreline championship, where schools across Connecticut compete in person to see which is the best at trivia. The game starts out with a question being asked, and you usually want to be the first team to buzz in. If you get the answer wrong, however, you lose points for your team if you buzz in too early and give an incorrect answer.
If you get it right, however, questions are now given to your team only, and if you keep getting the questions correct, you can gather points for your team and potentially stall out your opponents long enough to win.
“It’s kind of beneficial if you answer a question correctly, your team gets bonus questions where only your team can answer them,” said Ollie Taboda, a senior in the Trivia Bowl Club explained. “So it’s a strategy to where if you get the question where anyone can answer first, you can kinda stall for time if you’re ahead.”
Early on in the shorelines, Morgan started out very strong against the other teams, quickly outmatching them by stalling and gathering plenty of points. In their third and final match however they began to struggle, being neck and neck against Haddam-Killingworth halfway through the round. The team quickly came around however when one of the clubs strongest players, Oliver “Ollie” Taboda, was able to answer a difficult question, giving the team enough of an edge to go on and win the whole tourney through various other questions. This victory was very good for the team’s morale, showing that their teamwork and skills paid off when it came to competing head to head. “A lot of communication was needed, especially on the toss-up questions,” Rylen said. “You need to communicate with your team effectively if you want to be effective during play.”
As the team looks to the future however, many of its star players are going to move out of Morgan and into adulthood, leaving the team to look for new players. “We have a lot of seniors leaving us next year, so we’re looking for a couple new faces,” Harvey explained.
“Whether or not it’s an upcoming freshman or just some people who want to try out for the club.” So if any students at Morgan are interested in using their knowledge and trivia to compete against classmates and other schools, this club may be an opportunity for you to shine. “Feel free to join us, it’s a very fun afternoon once a week. There aren’t any obligations to stay if you have a job, or if you have sports, you’re allowed to come and go as you please,” closed Bergman.