First round launches Academic Bowl

October 14, 2008

A rousing first round of competition launched ASU into its third annual Academic Bowl Tuesday night.<separator></separator>The game: two 12-minute halves of rapid question-and-answer play between two opposing teams comprised of four players each. The players: undergraduate students competing for their respective colleges across all four campuses. The goods: up to $4,500 in scholarship money along with bragging rights.<separator></separator>In the first match of the night, the Cronkite School Maroon team went head-to-head with the returning champions from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, executive director of public affairs at ASU, served as moderator.<separator></separator>Backed by a cheering crowd of spectators, Liberal Arts and Sciences took an early lead, displaying a certitude in Greek mythology while the Cronkite team gained some points by correctly answering questions pertaining to current events. Both teams eagerly buzzed in for the chance to answer the 10-point toss-up questions thereby gaining the opportunity for their team to answer a series of bonus questions worth up to 20 to 30 points each.<separator></separator>At the close of the first half the scoreboard read 205 to 70 with Liberal Arts and Sciences ahead by a large margin. Cronkite’s vast knowledge in popular music albums proved otiose in catching up with the bowl veterans who clinched the match with 485 points to Cronkite’s 145. And what did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights preserve for all humans? Equal rights and dignity.<separator></separator>The Cronkite team consisted of students Ben Muth, Kenneth Wong, Dustin Volz and Vincent Burnton. Students Carlos Ross, Erin Hutchinson, Kenneth Lan and Mary Beth Hutchinson comprised the Liberal Arts and Sciences team.<separator></separator>The second match, also moderated by Jennings-Roggensack, featured the Fulton Engineering Gold team competing against the W. P. Carey team. Both teams went back and forth successfully answering toss-up and bonus questions that challenged their biblical knowledge, but the business students were able to gain substantial ground, despite an increasingly raucous crowd. The scoreboard read 170 to 70 by the close of the first half with W. P. Carey sustaining their lead in the second half to win the match 255 to 145.<separator></separator>Michael Veto, Cameron Karimi, Vincent Rollins and Andrew Latimer represented the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering with students August Steinbeck, Alexander Porter, Rishi Mohnot and Andrew Shaw competing for the W. P. Carey team.<separator></separator>The third and final matchup of the evening pitted the College of Human Services against the College of Design with Cronkite School professor Bill Silcock moderating. Design students Jeremy Mudd, Anthony Avery, Sal Cosenza and Catherine Gerard racked up bonus points by correctly answering the names of several of William Shakespeare’s plays, but lost five points when they could not determine which of the Bard’s plays dealt with three male characters who take an oath not to give into the company of women. The answer? “Love’s Labour’s Lost.” <separator></separator>The Human Services team, comprised of Alex Quinn, Katherine McCausland, Aubrey Roberts and Tyler Haeld gained ground and ended the first half ahead with 135 points to Design’s 70 points. The Design team was unable to make a comeback in the second half allowing the Human Services team to emerge victorious with a final score of 205 to 125.<separator></separator>The second opening round of the Academic Bowl will commence Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m. in the Pima Room of the Memorial Union on the Tempe campus.<separator></separator>

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