Scholars Bowl Teams from Couch Make Playoffs

The Scholars Bowl team from Couch Middle School in Grayson competed in the first tournament of the year at The Paideia School in Atlanta on Saturday.

Thirty six public and private schools from the metro Atlanta area were represented in the competition, and both the A and B teams from Couch earned spots in the playoffs.

Couch Middle School competed against rotating opposing teams in several rounds on Saturday. In the competition, a moderator read questions to the teams, whose players attempted to buzz in first with the correct answer to score points for their team. The competition included toss-up questions (similar to Jeopardy), worksheets the teams completed together in a specific amount of time and computational mathematics questions.

Couch’s A team consists of eighth graders Richard Parsons, Ian Diffley, Zach Beck, Julian Polynice and seventh grader Iditya Santoki.

Couch’s B team members are eighth graders Alex Carley and Chris Acuff, and seventh graders Sailor Nichols, Brianna Tello and Jacob Walton.

Couch Middle School also has a C team, which is mostly made up of sixth graders who are attending practices and preparing for next year. Bryce Davis, Kennedy Davis, Alex Ramirez, James Stephens and Zain Zaidi are members of the C team.

Couch Middle School’s Scholars Bowl coaches are Dennis Turnham and Cyndi Cioffi.

Students tried out earlier in the school year to earn a spot on Couch’s Scholars Bowl teams, and those selected attend biweekly practices after school. Team members are also encouraged to spend time studying a broad range of academic subjects at home in preparation for the many tournaments they will compete in this year.  

The team’s next competition is the 2011 Bulldog Brain Brawl at Chamblee Middle School on October 15.