Science Bowl team places third at regionals, falling short of national tournament qualification

Courtesy of Kathy Nakamatsu

Science Bowl members prepare for regionals during Feb. 1 meeting after school.  

The Science Bowl team fell short of making the national tournament this year after placing third in the regional competition held Feb. 10 at the National Accelerator Laboratory in West Menlo Park. 

The team went 5-1 in the preliminary rounds.  After losing to Palo Alto, the Falcons were placed into the second bracket going into the elimination round. The team overwhelmingly defeated Monta Vista and turned the tables by then defeating Palo Alto. However, in the semifinals, the team lost to Lynbrook, ultimately placing third behind Harker and Lynbrook. 

According to sophomore Max Rombakh, the team made many avoidable mistakes, and this caused them to lose momentum. Their strategy was to be as aggressive as possible as Lynbrook had many fast players, but with speed came inaccuracy. Lynbrook capitalized on these mistakes. 

In preparation for regionals, the team met once every week, generally on the last blue day of every week in room 1011, for two hours to host mock practice rounds. Generally, Science Bowl members conduct two practice sets per week, but they increased to four before the competition. During these practices, members rotated reading aloud from question packets while the other members tried their best to answer the questions correctly. 

Additionally, each member was expected to study their own material on their own time until they are familiar with it. According to sophomore Ethan Pan, most members spend more than 5-10 hours a week learning their subjects, while some choose to dedicate even more of their time to achieve success. 

“I spent around two hours a day on weekdays and nine hours a day on weekends studying biology through reading textbooks and online practice exams, to make sure that I could fulfill my part for the team during the regional competition,” sophomore Ethan Pan said. 

Each team member has their own set of strengths, so each team formed within Science Bowl chose their members carefully over the first few weeks of practice to make sure that the team can respond to questions on every single subject. 

Coached by Chemistry Honors teacher Kathy Nakamatsu, members choose to focus on various fields of sciences, which include math, biology, chemistry, physics and earth science. For the A-team members, senior captain Advaith Avadhanam is an all rounder, senior Nikhil Mathihalli focuses on physics, junior captain Skyler Mao focuses on Earth Science, Rombakh focuses on physics and astronomy and Pan focuses on biology. 

Other members on the 15-member team this year include freshman Seabert Mao, sophomores Warren Chee, Willis Chung, Alex Ge, Quinn Gifford and Arjun Krish, junior Alan Cai, and seniors Simarya Ahuja and Levana Lai.

Although all the members of the A-team were determined to achieve success this season, underclassmen Rombkah and Pan were committed to  going above and beyond to make up for the loss of now graduated members that they replaced, including Class of ‘23 alumni Nilay Mishra, Adam Xu and Anthony Wang. With the additional losses of Avadhanam and Mathihalli, they are committed to winning regionals during next year’s competition season. 

In order to reach their goals, they adopted “hour goals,” meaning that they had to work on their respective subjects for a certain amount of time before competitions. To complete these hour goals, they read textbooks, ran practice competitions and did research on their respective topics.

“I feel greatly honored about this opportunity to be in the A-team, and I will do my best to help the team to achieve the results that we want for next year’s competition season,” Rombakh said.