The Academic Team is hoping to continue its successful tradition by qualifying for the state competition again this year.

Ms. Christina Pommer, media specialist and coach of the Academic Team, said in the past, Saint Stephen’s has always placed fairly high in the county competitions.

“We’re always in the top half of the 16 Manatee County teams. We got first place a few years ago, and I believe we placed in the top five last year,” she said, adding, “We have a very strong senior contingent this year, so I think that’s do-able.”

The Academic Team participates in four meets a year, in which they play against 16 Manatee County teams. The top five players in Manatee County are then sent to the state competition at the end of the year.

“Academic Team is a county-wide competition where Manatee County high schools compete in academic trivia. Any subject you study in school could come up as a question, and there are 60 questions per subject per meet. The top five people from Manatee County then go on to compete at the state level,” Pommer said.

The team placed second in the last meet, which was held on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at Saint Stephen’s.

“The home meet…was a big success. The students felt like the questions were ‘easy,’ and we had a lot of buzzes,” Pommer said.

Senior Shubham Mathur, who was the high scorer in Tuesday’s meet, said the team is hoping to place higher in the next meet, which will be held at Lakewood Ranch High School on Dec. 6.

“It was a good meet. We came in second in the county, which is pretty good, but hopefully we’ll be able to take first in the next one,” he said.

Junior Devin McSweeney, who has been on the Academic Team since his freshman year, said they were off to a good start this year.

“Overall, we have always had a very strong academic team. This year we placed first in the first meet and third in the second meet,” he said.

The Academic Team meets once a week in order to prepare for upcoming meets. Senior Alex O’Dell said they usually just answered sample questions in order to practice for the meets.

“We start off with some easy questions and then get into some harder questions that are more similar to the kinds of questions we would get at meets. Then we split into teams and practice like we were at an actual meet,” he said.

McSweeney said the team has been practicing questions from several different categories because any kind of question could come up in competition.

“In the beginning, we sit down at the computers and play Sporcle, which is a Web site that gives you all these random quizzes in geography, history, literally everything. That gets our minds going. Then we practice questions about history, the different sciences and levels of math and all the other subjects. There’s even a miscellaneous section, which is basically just complete randomness,” he said.

There are three rounds per meet: one worth five points, one worth 10 points and another worth 15. Saint Stephen’s is considered a smaller school, so only four people comprise the team at a time during each round. Pommer said the rounds moved rapidly.

“A lot of the questions are math problems or multiple choice questions; they’re always things you can answer quickly,” she said.

O’Dell said he was hoping Saint Stephen’s would be able to help represent Manatee County at the state competition.

“Our team goal is always to get first overall, but we’re also hoping to send at least two people to states this year. It would be great if people from our school could make up at least two-thirds of the Manatee County team,” he said.