by Dennis Dalman
After a resounding triumph in regional competition, the Sartell Knowledge Bowl team will soon be going to the two-day state tournament April 10-11 at Cragun’s Resort in Brainerd.
The team of five Sartell High School seniors consists of Yazaan Anjum, Andrew Hackenmueller, Michael Hommerding, Patrick Kapoor and Austin Miller.
At the St. Cloud State University regional meet March 4, those students participated among the top from all three tiers of the competing schools. They started in second place but quickly took first place and maintained that standard right up until the end of the day, solidly securing a trip to the state in Tier One competition. They scored 125.5 points; no other team in that competition earned more than 107.5 points.
The teams that Sartell won against are from Albany, Buffalo, Eden Valley-Watkins, Foley, Kimball, Litchfield, Melrose, North Branch, Rogers, Rush City, St. John’s Prep, St. Cloud Tech and Watertown Mayer.
At Cragun’s Resort, the Sartell team will compete against other AAA schools from throughout Minnesota. It’s not known as this point which teams will face off in Cragun’s, but one of them will surely be Buffalo because that team took third in the regional Knowledge Bowl. Also from this region, the other teams going to state competition are Buffalo (AAA), Melrose and Albany (both AA) and Litchfield (A).
Two of the Sartell students from last year’s team are still on this year’s team: Yazaan Anjum and Michael Hommerding.
The team coach is Alex King, a Sartell High School science teacher now in his third year of teaching. The assistant coach is Sage Heitz, a speech/language pathologist at Riverview Elementary School.
King reacted to the March 4 regional win:
“It was stupendous,” he said. “We placed second at state last year, but with all high school activities there’s turnover from year to year and you can’t guarantee continued success. We knew the competition was going to be tight this year because many schools in our region have been really good throughout the season.”
At the regional, the competitors were asked questions concerning biology, geography, literature, chemistry, current events and more.
The following are just four of the questions and correct answers:
“What two women have been both first lady and mother of a president?” Answer: Barbara Bush and Abigail Adams.
“In preparation for Operation Downfall, the U.S. military made such an abundance of what award that their stockpiles are still being used today?” Answer: The Purple Heart.
“What verb and noun can refer to the highest point of a mountain or the act of reaching that point?” Answer: Summit.
“What three-digit code is shared by a passenger plane that was shot down by the Soviet Union in 1983 and Ian Fleming’s secret-agent character?” Answer: 007.
The members of the Sartell High School Knowledge Bowl team, all of them seniors, are (left to right) Austin Miller, Andrew Hackenmueller, Yazaan Anjum, Michael Hommerding and Patrick Kapoor.
