Coatesville goes 6-2 in National Academic competition

Academic team has valiant run, including five consecutive victories

By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times

ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Coatesville High School Academic team went 6-2 overall at the Questions Unlimited National Academic Championship over the weekend.

Consisting of seniors Paul Draper, Joshua Mensah, Justin Gans, junior Shawn Mengel, sophomore Timo Mather, and senior captain Chasan Hall, the team won their first five consecutive matchups before losing in the third playoff round to eventual overall runners up Coronado.

On Friday morning, the competition started out close for Coatesville facing Harrison in the opening preliminary round. However, a correct answer by Hall on the last question of the round gave his side the 245-230 victory.

However, most of the remaining preliminary rounds proved less stressful with the team defeating Fairfield (Illinois) 425-225, Alden (New York) 285-125, Morristown West (Tennessee) 285-115, and interstate opponents Somerset 285-180, cruising to a record of 5-0 on the first day of competition. They outscored their opponents 1525-875 over a span of nearly 12 hours in the process.

But Coatesville could not continue the momentum on Saturday, taking its sole loss of the preliminary round in a 350-200 defeat to Bishop Kelley out of Oklahoma.

The 5-1 performance earned the team a number 10 seed and a first round bye in the playoffs on Sunday.

With 16 teams remaining, Coatesville squared off against number seven seed James Island (South Carolina) in the second round.

The Pennsylvania team grabbed an early lead with the score at 125-105 after the second of four sets of questions. However, the favorites battled back, taking over at 215-195 going into the final set. Once again, Coatesville pulled the late comeback, winning 280-245 at the end of the round.

Coatesville looked close to continuing the Cinderella story in the next round against Texas’s Coronado.

Once again, Coatesville jumped to an early lead of 75-40 after the first set of questions, which expanded to 170-105 after the second set. However, the number two seeded El Paso team began to scale the mountain in the third set, and Coatesville’s lead shrank to 250-245.

The tournament’s eventual runners up would go on to complete the comeback, beating Coatesville 395-295.

The team’s performance was admirable, especially considering the team they lost to finished as runners up both this year and last year.