From competition to competition, Junior Varsity or Varsity, this year’s Manhattan High Scholars Bowl team has been on fire. Varsity and J.V. have been pushing through the competition from other schools this whole season.

On Dec. 11, J.V. competed at Southeast Saline along with Junction City, Flint Hills and Beloit where they won every match except one.

“We won every match by a lot except for one, which we were ahead by like 20,” sophomore Mathew Ewers said.  

The students who attended were Ewers and sophomores Josh Brandt, Casey Gritton and Tanya Singh. The team split up because they had a “bye” round.

“There was one match where Mathew and Josh split up from the team because we were essentially playing no one,” Singh said.

Even with all this going on they competed in the finals with SE Salina and won, 65-30. They still ended up placing first.

On Wednesday, Varsity attended a meet at Lawrence Free State.

“It’s a large school quality meet because they pull in a lot of the Kansas City area schools,” sponsor Ted Dawdy said.

Going with the very top students a school has is imperative. Some of the team’s regular Varsity players had the Orchestravaganza at the high school, so they could not attend. The students who travelled with the team were sophomores Styopa Zharkov and Robert Zhang, along with juniors Akash Aryal, Greg Chikan and Jered Zhang.

Varsity ended up competing in close matches. They went 5-2 in pool play, losing a match against St. Thomas Aquinas by five points which would have advanced the team forward. Unfortunately they did not advance onto the championship bracket to place in this meet.

Both teams have worked hard this year and continue to do so which has been shown at each meet they attend.

“It’s a good experience to have in high school,” Ewers said. “Most people say it’s hard and it is, but if you just commit to practices and work on it, it really isn’t that difficult.”