The Pequot Lakes High School Knowledge Bowl team of Megan Buffington, Logan Haberman, Will Hallbeck and Cole Trottier ended the year by finishing 23rd at the state meet Friday, April 9.
The meet was held virtually via Discord due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. Instead of buzzing in as they would for in-person meets, the teams had to simply open their chat windows to answer questions.
“The season as a whole was definitely different,” Buffington said. “You lose a lot of the strategy of Knowledge Bowl when you aren’t in-person. One example is a thing we do called ‘panic buzzing,’ where even if you don’t know the answer, you buzz in so other teams buzz in. Because of the virtual format, we couldn’t do that.”
Buffington did say that one benefit to the virtual format was that it allowed for more and clearer discussion among teammates, since they did not have to whisper back and forth as they would at an in-person meet.
“I think we did the best we could under the circumstances,” Buffington said. “We are just slightly big enough to be in Class 2A, so we were competing against a lot bigger schools. All things considered, I’m happy with how we did.”
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Dan Determan may be reached at 218-855-5879 or dan.determan@pineandlakes.com. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@PEJ_Dan.
