LHS Academic Challenge team begins season

Lovell High School’s Wyoming Academic Challenge team traveled to Cheyenne on Saturday to compete at the first WAC meet of the year at Laramie County Community College. The Wyoming Academic Challenge is an academic competition where schools from across the state compete in quiz style rounds.

The students who competed were juniors Nate Cornia (who was captain for the meet), Porter Bau and Cutler Wilkerson, along with freshman Michael Cornia.

“It was great exposure for Michael to see what it is and what to expect,” coach Bret George said.

Unlike the regular competitions with 60 nonstop toss-up questions, this meet used a toss-up bonus style for competing. There were four rounds each about an hour long. Each round included 20 core questions worth 10 points, along with four bonus questions for each core question worth 5 points. If a team answered the core question correctly, they earned first shot at the bonuses.

Lovell placed fourth overall out of 18 teams there. The team felt very proud of the results.

“Nate was definitely our strongest competitor,” George said.

Nate Cornia was in charge of organizing his team to answer the different questions, which demonstrated strong leadership, George said, adding that he was impressed with how the students represented the school and how respectful they were.

Lovell averaged 100-105 points per round because of core questions, which gave leverage. Even though they competed against schools up to five times the size of Lovell, the Bulldogs still finished near the top.

“We showed up and represented Lovell very well,” George said.

Because it was the first meet of the season and other sports conflicted with the schedule, George had to drive to Newcastle to pick up the competitors from football to take them to the WAC meet. He said the first competition set a strong start to the season, and the team hopes to continue building momentum for future WAC meets.