POP QUIZ MASTERS

WASILLA — Mat-Su Career and Technical High School maintained its championship status in the Alaska State Science Bowl on Friday, but a new group of students will be heading to the national competition this spring.

After the third round of seven before the semi-finals, the Career and Tech Grey team was the only undefeated team of eight participating, but it was a close call against Palmer.

“The turning point was at the half, when we said, OK, we can’t lose, so we decided not to,” said Grey team captain Sarah Montalbano, a sophomore.

Montalbano said her team made some dumb mistakes at the beginning of the third round, but it wasn’t for lack of preparation.

“For the past two weeks we’ve been spending all our lunches and free time (studying),” said freshman Charlie Michael, Montalbano’s teammate.

Mat-Su Borough School District instructional coordinator Jana DePriest — who facilitated Alaska’s state Science Bowl at Career and Tech (CTHS) — said questions for the competition are the same for every state, and are therefore carefully guarded and distributed to the judges. Subjects range from earth and space science to biology, chemistry and physics, and math.

“We’ve been trying to learn trig,” for the event, Montalbano said, since none of her team had yet taken the class, but the subject was fair game in the competition.

By the end of the evening Friday, Montalbano led Michael and teammates Zach Barnes and Drake Ballais to a dramatic first place finish.

“The first match CTHS Black dominated by winning by 80 points. But the table turned in the next match (when) CTHS Grey won by 20,” said Career and Tech coach Tim Lundt in an email Saturday morning.

The Black team consisted of senior captain Lucas Arthur, returning members Jacob Cucinello and Cade Johnstone and junior newbies Alex Burris and Amy McDougall. Arthur and Cucinello were on last year’s winning team with now-graduated students Ariel Haase, Jake Hartman and Nate Peters-Landlord.

The Black team took second behind their Grey team classmates, followed by an all-girls team from Wasilla High.

Wasilla coach and science teacher Melinda Ragsdale said half-way through the competition that her students seemed to be doing much better than last year — the fact that she brought two teams instead of one was enough indication of that, she said.

The Palmer High team, coached by Cheryl Williams, took third.

Colony High coach Lesley Bunch brought two teams to the competition, which was Colony’s Science Bowl debut.

Despite it being the state meet, Valley teams have typically been the only ones represented at the event.

Montalbano, Michael, Barnes and Ballais will attend the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. April 28 through May 2.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.