Northampton High School’s quiz bowl team won the championship match of WGBY-TV’s “As Schools Match Wits” show on Saturday, beating Mount Greylock’s team.
The NHS team played four matches on the TV show during the 2016-’17 season, finishing undefeated. This is the school’s first championship title on the show since 1979.
Team member and graduating senior Matt Grimaldi said he attributes the team’s success to the group dynamic of the five boys — Grimaldi, Josh Dobrow, Jesse Zeldes, Henry Reade and Joe Bosco — who competed together on the show.
“This is the first time this specific team competed,” Grimaldi said. “We’re all good friends, and I think we have a chemistry that wasn’t present other years.”
He also said he thinks the group benefited from not taking the competition too seriously, unlike other teams they played against. The NHS competitors cracked jokes on the set, and Grimaldi said his coach, NHS teacher Mark Hanson, encouraged it.
“I think his philosophy is that joking around is just you being comfortable in the setting,” Grimaldi said.
In May, the NHS quiz bowl team went to Atlanta, where they played 10 matches at the National Academic Quiz Tournaments’ national competition, winning four.