On February 25th, the Ashland Brain Bowl team competed in the Regional SOU Brain Bowl Tournament, in a varsity division against 15 other teams. The team is coached by teachers Bill Gabriel and Matthew McKinnon and comprised of Misha Boldt (11), Lhiam Howard (9), Gray Lunn (9), Wyler McAnich-Ruenzi (12), Jaidyanne Podsobinsky (11), Jasper Raynolds (12), and captain Michael Skidmore (11). They’ve practiced over stacks of accumulated questions each each week for the entirety of the semester.

“I had a great time. The team worked super well together,” freshman Gray Lunn said. “I had a great opportunity as a freshman.”

“It’s the competitive nature of the activity I enjoy,” Jaidyanne Podsobinsky said, adding that you tend to find that only in athletics.
After remaining undefeated in the preliminaries, they’re going on to the Semi-finals on SOPTV on April 29th.

Sample Questions

Discovered in 1877, which body is sixteen miles across and irregularly shaped? It is likely a captured asteroid, and its orbit is under eight hours. Name this larger of the two moons of Mars. (Answer: Phobos)

His father was white, and his last name was originally Bailey. After serving as a slave to several owners, he ran away to New York City in 1838. In 1841, he delivered a speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and from that point on he gained fame as an abolitionist leader. Who was this publisher of The North Star? (Answer: Fredrick Douglas)

(From the Stanford Quiz Bowl Archive)