North Ridgeville Outscores Avon for Victory on The Scholastic Games High School Quiz

The weekly quiz show featuring academic teams from Lorain County high schools, Scholastic Games, brought a win for the North Ridgeville High School team on the February 22 program on WEOL (AM 930/FM 100.3) with a 320 to 270 final score against Avon High School. Both schools have won the program’s academic championship in the past, Avon three times out of the last five years. It has been more than a decade since North Ridgeville has “gone all the way,” but its team is on the right track this year.

Representing Ridgeville were Chris Stanulet, Alex Wood, and team captain Vincent Kafer, who was awarded the program’s Standout Scholar Award, which is presented each week to the student who contributed the most to his or her team according to judges and scorekeepers. The honor includes a $50 prize, which is presented at the end of the school year. Avon’s panel consisted of Matt Downing, Liam McCarthy, and team captain Sam Golik.

The first of five rounds of questions, called the “Initial Round,” comprised of answers starting with the same letter (“J” this time), ended with a 50 to 40 lead for North Ridgeville. The Avon team bounced back, outscoring their opponents in the “Current Events Round,” to tie the score 90 to 90, a near-perfect performance from both teams. It was in the third round that scores began to diverge.

Round three, the Theme Round, focused on U.S. government, ranging from electoral votes to vice presidents. It is the first round allowing the other team to answer questions that are unanswered or answered incorrectly by the team to which they are directed. Both teams did well, but Ridgeville emerged with a 30 point lead.

It was a similar story in the fourth round. Each answer in that round can follow a multi-clue series in which a correct answer to a first clue yields fifty points, with diminishing point values for additional clues. If still unanswered, the series ends with a final clue worth ten points. In prior years a “buzzer round,” the first response was determined by a team member calling out the name of the team. North Ridgeville’s Kafer scored first with 30 points when he identified Louis Pasteur. Avon’s Golik bounced back with a 40 point score, naming the kingdom of Denmark. The third item, clues about the state of California, brought a 50-point response from Avon with an answer of Texas, an incorrect response that awarded all remaining clues to the other team, resulting in 20 points for Avon. North Ridgeville also scored with the final two items in the round, adding 20 points by naming Roger Williams from clues about Rhode Island history, and 30 from clues about Frederick Douglass.

North Ridgeville had added another 20 points to its lead in the fourth round. The final, longest round alternated ten point questions between the two teams, awarding 20 point bonus questions following correct answers. It often allows one team to pile on points at the expense of the other, but for the second week in a row, the teams earned an equal number of points in the last round, giving the win to Ridgeville.

This year’s eight highest winning scores will earn them positions in the quarterfinals, which begin eliminations in April broadcasts for May’s academic championship, which will conclude the Scholastic Games’ 31st season. Higher-scoring runner-up teams are being given a second chance to achieve a winning score in broadcasts beginning in just two weeks. Avon now holds the season’s second highest losing score, joining Brookside as a likely winner the second time around. The lowest-scoring winning teams will also return for an opportunity to achieve a higher winning score.

Academic teams are all under the supervision of faculty advisors. Advisor for the North Ridgeville team is William Majcher, and Todd Sayers is advisor for the Avon team. Scholastic Games began in the fall of 1990 with the support of Nordson Corporation and has continued on radio station WEOL during every school year since. Operating under the auspices of the Community West Foundation, in addition to Nordson Corporation, the program has received additional support this year from the Alfred T. Askew Fund of the Community Foundation of Lorain County, and from the Nord Family Foundation. The Elyria Public Library System has been sponsoring the program on WEOL and providing venue space for program sessions for several years.

Following broadcast, weol.com and standoutscholars.com offer the programs as “podcasts,” which make the programs available on the World Wide Web. Through the years, all public and private high schools have been invited to compete. Here is the upcoming schedule as determined so far, with programs running between 6 and 7 p.m. on Mondays, to be followed by playoff rounds.

• 3/1 Amherst vs. Lake Ridge Academy
• 3/8 Returning teams: Brookside vs. Elyria
• 3/15 Returning teams: Amherst Steele vs. Avon Lake
• 3/22 Returning teams: Midview vs. Oberlin
• 3/29 Returning teams: Keystone vs. Avon
• through May: one more return match, Playoffs & Championship

In some weeks, live sports coverage will delay the quiz to Tuesday, same time. This may affect some of the dates.

Over the years, twelve different schools have won the championships, including Amherst Steele (1991, 2015), Elyria (1992, 93, 94, 97, 2000), Admiral King (1995, 1998), Oberlin (1996), North Ridgeville (1999, 2002), Avon Lake (2001, 05, 20), Midview (2003), Keystone (2004), Lake Ridge Acad. (2006, 10), Vermilion (2007, 08), Avon (2009, 16, 17,19), Olmsted Falls (2011, 12, 13, 14, 18).

Area colleges and universities participate by providing $1000 tuition credit awards for allocation by participating high schools. Participating for all or most of the program’s thirty-year history were Lorain County Community College, Oberlin College, Ursuline College, Ashland University, Baldwin Wallace University, Case Western Reserve, Heidelberg University, John Carroll University, with more recent additional awards from the University of Findlay, Lake Erie College, Tiffin University and Notre Dame College of Ohio.

A member of the Broadcasters Hall of Fame of Akron and Cleveland, the program’s host and producer, Jim Mehrling, is a veteran northeast Ohio broadcaster. After seven years as Chief Announcer at WEOL, he was Production Manager at Cleveland’s WERE-AM for over a decade, and filled a similar role with Cleveland’s WCLV-FM for over 25 years. He is recipient of a 2019 President’s Award from the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters. Again this year, most Scholastic Games programs will be followed by a talk feature, “Dialogues in Education,” which presents education success stories with its host, award-winning journalist Bob Tayek.