Academic League expected to easily win their match against Classical Academy High School, March 3. For President Aakarsh Vermani (12), this confidence came from four years of Academic League practices and competitions.

“We’ve played [Classical] in the past and it’s been a fairly comfortable win for us,” he said. “But given how close the  match was, it was a good reminder to always be on your toes and never expect to win a game because they were really a good team and we underestimated them.”

Academic League is a trivia-based competition between two teams where players answer a series of questions on topics ranging from Spanish and literature to math and physics. There are two types of questions: tossups and bonuses. Players from both teams race to click their buzzer to answer tossup questions, and upon answering correctly, have 20 seconds to answer a multi-part bonus question, where teams can work together to answer the questions. As varsity competitions are only 35 minutes long, one question can change the entire outcome of the round.

As a newer member, Yuktha Senthil (12) said she felt the stress of having less competition experience.

“Being a newbie, sometimes I felt like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m not sure I’ll be able to contribute this time,’” Senthil said. “But during the match with Classical, I told myself I was just going to try to answer as many questions as I could. There’s a fear factor involved with getting the question wrong that inhibits people from buzzing and [while] that really happens with me, I pushed my fears to the side, and just buzzed.”

According to Vermani, the fear of answering a question incorrectly is something that never completely leaves him, but his years of experience have allowed it to not affect his performance in competition.

“Everyone misses stupid questions and if you keep dwelling on that, you’re not going to be able to focus on the next question,” he said. “You have to just let it go and recognize that mistakes are going to happen sooner or later.”

This mindset helped Westview recover even though the first half of the match did not proceed as planned. Instead of a runaway game, the two teams seemed like they were evenly matched. With 16 minutes left in the match, Classical was ahead 32-37.

“Usually, I keep track of the score but at times where we are a bit behind and [winning] feels less likely, I try not to,”  Treasurer Radhika Sreelal (12) said. “I think everyone who was playing during that moment had no idea who was winning. We were all just trying to get as many questions right because we had no idea if any question would make or break the score.”

That focus paid off. With just six minutes left on the clock, Westview pulled ahead, 55-51. Even though it was still a tight game, Vermani said the small lead gave him confidence that the team could maintain it.

“It was definitely relieving,” he said. “At that point, I felt a little more comfortable because I knew we could stay ahead. It kinda felt like a weight had been lifted off but at the same time I knew we had to keep playing our best.”

For the next six minutes, the team stayed diligent, buzzing in to answer tossups and collaborating on bonus questions. At the end of the game, with their breath held, the players turned towards the scoreboard and let out a sigh of relief that they had won, 74-71.

“I was a little bit in shock because I didn’t really think that it happened,” Sreelal said. “It was a little frustrating to know that [the score] was so close just because usually we would do a lot better than that, but I was definitely glad our team had recovered and managed to persevere.”

Reflecting on the match, Vermani said he plans to focus more on current events and work on faster reaction times for math tossup questions during the upcoming practices. 

At the end of the day, what draws Vermani, Sreelal, Senthil, and the rest of their team members to Academic League isn’t their need for a perfect win streak but their curiosity and love of learning.

“The thing I love about Academic League is that there’s something for everybody,” Vermani said. “You don’t have to [be an expert in every subject]. You can focus on a subject [based on your interests], like mythology or literature. It’s a lot of fun to be there and answer questions with your friends.”