Ocean Bowl advances to national competition
Dan Otis, Director of Marine Studies
Canterbury’s Ocean Bowl team had a very successful year and is headed to the National Finals. The team consists of juniors Bronwyn Gairing, Clark Gairing, Sarah Realbuto, Annie Ritch and senior Christine Hammerschmidt.
The team began meeting in October and worked throughout the winter to prepare for the Spoonbill Bowl, which is the West Florida regional competition for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.
The competition involves two types of questions; Jeopardy-style buzzer questions answered individually and team questions, which the entire team works on together. This was Canterbury's third year competing, and experience was evident in the early rounds as the team was undefeated in its division and moved the semifinals for the first time.
The semifinal match was against a very strong SCUBAnauts team, students from many local high schools, who are interested in diving. Canterbury was down by 15 points at the break, but were poised and confident,and able to prevail by answering the majority of the buzzer questions in the second half.
It was then onto the finals against a team from FAMU, which is a high school associated with the college in Tallahassee. They were a very strong team and Canterbury again found itself behind at the break. Once again, however, Canterbury proved to be a comeback team and used a strong second half to secure a victory.
As a result, team members each received an iPod and the team won an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete against 24 teams from across the country for the national title in late April.
(The team will also be recognized by St. Petersburg City Council on April 9; see related article on Envirothon.)
