Coached by science teacher Dr. Catherine Croft and captained by senior Evan Hunter, the FHS Academic Team has had a very successful season. The 17 members who range from freshman to seniors hold practice once a week on Fridays in Croft’s classroom where the team answers questions from past meets. Senior Bianca Simmons said, “School is basically practice, so the more you know the more you are able to answer questions.” While the meets for the academic team occur during the winter season, the team practices all year round.

“Our whole season went really well, we got third,” said Simmons. The regional and district meets were held in February at FHS and James Wood High School respectively. During meets, competitors are quizzed on various topics such as sports, pop culture, classical composers and literature. Two matches are held in every meet, with each match involving multiple rounds of questions.

“The first rounds are the toss up questions, which are like the buzzer, or jeopardy style questions, ” Simmons said. The second round includes more directed questions, or the team questions. The final round contains more toss-up questions, and has the same structure as the first.

Hunter and senior Raeid Ebrahim are typically starters in the directed questions round. Due to the large size of the team, only juniors and seniors can go to the away meets, but all members attend the home meets. Simmons says, “[The questions are] pretty random, but at the same time you know what you’re preparing for.” She says that occasionally questions are reused but they are just worded differently.

After their regional meet, the seniors went on to compete on “It’s Academic”, a PBS tv show, where the team made it to the semifinals. Even though the team is finished with competitions for the year, they are still holding practices once a week to help prepare the underclassmen for next year. The team has had a very successful season and they are striving to continue to be \ successful in the years to come.