Moving on to the final round of the state quiz bowl competition, let alone placing second in State and moving on to nationals was not the outcome senior quiz bowl team co-captain Jacy Demcisak thought was going to occur.

“I’m very excited,” Demcisak said. “I seriously did not expect us to get to the final round of state.”

Park’s quiz bowl team placed second in the state tournament at Burnsville High School Feb. 17. It’s because of their performance at state and in previous tournaments, they also recently qualified for nationals in Atlanta, Georgia over Memorial Day weekend. 

The team also placed second in the pop-culture themed tournament ACRONYM at Armstrong High School Feb. 19. 

Coach Peter Dangerfield said he is incredibly proud of the recent performances of the quiz bowl team, as he continues to be amazed by the diversity and depth of the Park players’ knowledge.

“Our kids finished second at both the state tournament with the academic tournament and the pop culture tournament, which  is amazing,” Dangerfield said. “It shows the breadth of just diverse interests that our kids have.”

Along with the high placement at State, senior and co-captain Truman Filbrandt received an individual award for being the highest scorer in any quiz bowl tournament in the division this past season. According to Filbrandt, the honor was a complete surprise.

“I didn’t know we got awards for it,” Filbrandt said. “I didn’t expect to be first place the first couple times around and then you know, lo and behold, here I am.”

While qualifying for nationals is not a surprise for Dangerfield, he’s excited to lead Park’s return to the tournament after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s always great to get back there,” Dangerfield said. “It’s been obviously a couple years due to COVID since we’ve been there and so it felt really good to get back out, compete again, and to see how good we are as a team.”

Going into nationals, Demcisak said she is reminding herself that she is not all that different from her competition.

“In the end, they’re still high schoolers, they’re still teenagers,” Demcisak said. “They probably also do stupid things in practice, they probably also mess around — it’s trying to find that balance of competition versus also friendliness.”

Filbrandt said he is cautiously optimistic about how the team may perform in nationals, especially because of the team’s past performances.

“I’m hopeful because we didn’t get second in the entire state, so it’ll be fun to play off against them like other schools to see what they’re like,” Filbrandt said. “The questions for nationals are actually a little bit harder, so it’ll be interesting to see what we get.”