Atkins High School narrowly missed winning a state championship title by a single point in the state final of the NCASA Twelve competition hosted at Rogers-Herr Middle School in Durham on Saturday, December 14. The Twelve is the first in a series of academic contests that lead to the awarding of the NCASA Scholastic Cup at the end of the school year. The third-place finish nets Atkins HS 45 points in the Cup Race.
"I am really proud of the Atkins team," said Atkins Principal Joe Childers. "When you consider that the top two schools were five or six times our size, I think our team did an outstanding job." At the end of twelve close rounds of twelve questions each, the Atkins team was one point out of the lead with 110 correct, behind a first-place tie between two Charlotte Mecklenburg schools, Ardrey Kell and Myers Park, both with 111. Both Charlotte schools tying for first have student enrollments in excess of 2,000.
Also with 110 points was Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy. An overtime round was held to try to determine a tie-breaker between Ardrey Kell and Myers Park, but both teams scored eight points and the contest was left a tie. The third-place tie was left unbroken.
According to NCASA Executive Director Leon Pfeiffer, "The 2013 Twelve Competition was one of the most exciting competitions in NCASA history. "It was easily the most competitive competition in our history with four schools finishing within one point of each other after the final round. Six different schools also won rounds, another record indicating parity among the competing schools. This parity made every single question and answer count in every round. Going into the final round, Ardrey Kell led Myers Park and Thomas Jefferson by two, and Atkins by three. However, the final round brought these teams together with just one point separating the four schools. Even the overtime round could not differentiate the co-champions as each team earned 8 points in overtime."
For Atkins, coming this close to winning a state title was not without mixed feelings. "It feels good to know that we have the talent and the desire to compete with any team in the state, but it does feel a little hollow coming so tantalizingly close to winning, but still ending up in third place. Any two questions we would have gotten right would have given us a victory," said Atkins teacher and Twelve Team Coach Kevin Hamilton. Of the twelve rounds, Atkins won the Current Events round and tied for the lead in Word Problems and Geography.
The Twelve competition is unique to the NCASA organization and pits twelve students from each school against each other in a twelve-round competition with twelve questions per round. The contest features questions from a wide array of academic areas including US and World History, Civics and Economics, Physical and Life Sciences, several types of Mathematics, Literature and Grammar, and even wildcard topics. The wildcards on Saturday were Current Events and the Performing Arts. "Twelve is a unique competition in a number of ways," said Pfeiffer. "First, it is a knowledge-based competition that allows students to specialize in a particular subject, like US History or Life Sciences. However, it rewards those students who can contribute in other areas by allowing each student to compete in three rounds. It also rewards those well-rounded students by including two wildcard topics in each competition."
Team member AJ Goren was excited about the team's results, saying it was "definitely a good feeling, especially considering that we were only one point behind. Having the second-highest score, especially by such a close margin, is really exciting even if it gets counted as a third-place finish because two teams tied for first." Student Meredith Hemphill said, "We improved over last year and placed in a state competition. There aren't many teams who can say that." She also noted that it was also hard for the team to not be disappointed with coming so close to a victory. Hemphill is a two-time individual state champion and was a member of the state champion Quill writing team two years ago.
The Twelve team was made up of Meredith Hemphill, John Henry Jackson, Hunter Chen, Lazar Trifunovic, Jack Bloomfled, Nik Bramblett, Chase Miller, Sterling Davis, Jonathan Grubbs, Vinish Kumar, AJ Goren, and Devika Ghosh. Alternates who attended to cheer their team on were Abi Udaiyar, Blakely Mitchell, and Emory Soper.
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