The A-team

WASILLA — The best high school science minds in Alaska once again did battle at the annual state Science Bowl, and once again, it was no match.

The ‘A-Team’ from Mat-Su Career Tech made short work of all 10 challengers to pass through their hallways Friday night, to win the state title and book a spot in the National Science Bowl in Washington D.C. at the end of April.

The ‘A-Team’s’ closest competition was the Mat-Su Career ‘B-Team’, which last year, led by Sarah Montalbano, Zach Barnes and Charlie Michaels that knocked off the A-Team in the final head-to-head quiz.

This year, those three joined forces with Lucas Arthur and Jacob Cucinello — a math specialist to form perhaps the strongest Alaskan science quiz team to date.

“A big part of it is buzzer practice, which is something we work on that a lot of other schools don’t do,” Michael said. “Lathrop started (buzzer practice) on the drive down from Fairbanks, but it’s a speed match.”

In the science bowl, teams would rotate between classrooms for head-to-head game-show like quizzes where a correct answer on a buzz-in is worth 4 points, plus a 10-point bonus question in which the teams may collaborate on the answer. A wrong answer before the emcee is finished with the question and the other team gets the 4 points.

Each round covers all of a handful of scientific topics to include biology, chemistry, math, energy, astronomy, physics and general science, and the questions get harder with each rotation.

The night started with round one level questions, but by the time of the title match, questions were at level 9.

“By the end it’s significantly more difficult, so if you don’t know the answer, it’s not a matter of speed,” Arthur said. “You really have to have a big breadth and depth of knowledge.”

Last year at nationals, the Alaska representatives didn’t fare quite so well, winning just one match in eight tries and that because their opponent was disqualified for using an ineligible player.

“Our region is relatively uncompetitive with 11 teams,” Arthur said. “I was talking with a friend from Nevada and they had 32 teams from 32 different schools and they were all very close matches.”

This year, they feel much more confident in their chances at competing.

But winning matches without benefit of disqualification is a very attainable goal, the team believes.

“We could win at least a couple of matches as long as we don’t run into a couple of schools who go there every year like Thomas Jefferson, from D.C.,” Michael said. “A member of their team last year had written a scientifically accepted physics textbook. Last year we were in their bracket. We kind of got crushed by them.”

Arthur said brackets are determined by the captains’ random drawings of plastic eggs with names of scientists inside them. Their respective fields set the field.

“Everybody is very respectful and nice, but we don’t scare anybody,” Barnes said. “It’d be nice to see that change, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Before the Mat-Su Career Tech squad heads to the nation’s capital, they have more unprecedented dominance to establish here in The Last Frontier.

With a win next week in Seward in the annual Ocean Bowl, which focuses on oceanography, meteorology, geology, marine biology and oceanic history, and a win on April 1 in the state Science Olympiad, Mat-Su Career Tech would be the first team to win state titles in all three competitions for three straight years.

The 23 events in the Olympiad range in subject from electronics and robotics to chemistry and biology. That event takes place on April 1 at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“I’m a little worried about the Fairbanks schools,” Arthur said. “Last year was their first year and they performed pretty well.”

“They don’t have enough to win,” Barnes clarified. “But they have enough to stop us from winning.”