Park High’s Academic Olympiad team took first place at a regional tournament in Frenchtown on Tuesday, April 9. The Park High “A” team, consisting of junior Morgan Sites and seniors Silas Hjortsberg, Remy Sexton, Aiden Alkire, and James Melin defeated a team from Beaverhead County High School in Dillon in the final to take home the title. The Ranger Academic Team adds this victory to a recent spell of good results at tournaments, placing 4th at another competition in Bozeman in March and taking 3rd at the state competition in Missoula last year. The team, whose advisor is world languages teacher Daniel McGrath, brought two teams to enhance their chances at winning and it paid off.
“It was impressive, but surprising. I think we could definitely place at state, if we go,” McGrath said.
“It’s a lot of fun, I always have a lot of fun on the trips we go on,” said Morgan Sites, a Junior. “Winning a tournament is not something that I thought we could do when I was a freshman.”
Academic Olympiad meets after school on Thursdays and competes by answering Jeopardy-style trivia questions on teams of five. Points are awarded for correct answers and deducted for incorrect answers. If a team gets an answer right, they get the chance to answer three bonus questions for even more points.
“You can’t really study for Academic Olympiad,” Sites added. “I just study what I’m interested in.”
Sites and the rest of the academic team will look to build off of their victory in Frenchtown at the state meet in Missoula on April 23 and qualify for nationals.