The MSMS Quizbowl Team — consisting of juniors Dylan Randall, Towery McNeil and Richard Zheng and senior Caleb Jenkins — is the state champion after winning April 9’s state competition at Itawamba Agricultural High School.

The team won the title after averaging almost 100 more points per game in seven rounds than the runner-up, McNeil said.

“We just rolled over everybody,” he said.

“We had a 7-0 record. I was the second top scorer, and Richard was the third top scorer,” added Randall, the group’s co-president. 

Throughout the year, the team prepared with club meetings filled with a myriad of practice questions each Tuesday afternoon. Before the state championship, members ramped up their preparations in hopes it would pay off.

“I know Dylan, Caleb, Richard and I have all been studying a lot [by] working on our specialties and our team roles. We assembled a good squad for the tournament, knew what to learn and prepped for it,” McNeil said. “Even on the bus ride, we talked about T.S. Eliot and Chiang Kai-Shek to be well prepared.” 

“I was a little worried going into the tournament because I didn’t know how tough the competition would be, but by the end of it, I was feeling pretty confident in our abilities,” Jenkins added. 

Once the competition was over and MSMS secured the victory, team members could breathe and reflect on their accomplishments. Zheng said his favorite moment of the competition was when the team “got a free pizza for winning.”

“A close second would be when Towery and I did a Rick and Morty impression in one of the bonus rounds,” Zheng said. 

After the state competition, the Quizbowl Team was not completely done for the season. On April 27, it hosted its second campus tournament in whichany MSMS student could compete. 

“They had a Taylor Swift lighting round section, and that was by far my favorite part,” junior Nora Courtney said. 

With the national competition conflicting with MSMS’s graduation day, the team is mulling sending a junior team to compete.