Freshman Knowledge Bowl team chooses challenge over perfection

The Buffalo Junior Varsity B Knowledge Bowl team made a decision to sacrifice their flawless first-place ranking in order to bring on a challenge.

The decision was made on February 12th at a meet in Elk River. After taking First Place for the fifth consecutive meet,  the former Junior Varsity team and the Buffalo High School Knowledge Bowl coaches decided that moving up to a higher level would increase the level of competition. At that point in the season, the Junior Varsity B team had won first place in every meet by a landslide. At one meeting, their team had earned enough points to put them above the top-scoring Varsity team. This has caused coaches from other schools to question if the team was competing at the appropriate level, even if the squad was made up entirely of freshmen. 

The newly named Varsity 5 team is not concerned about losing. In fact, they are ready to not be on top anymore. In their first meet at the varsity level in Sartell on February 18, the team ranked as high as fifth place throughout the meet and finished in the top 10, among the upper 25% of varsity teams at the meet. 

“I’m honestly excited to lose because it’s boring to keep winning,” said Daniel Jungwirth ‘25, a freshman who has been in Knowledge Bowl for three years.

In past Junior Varsity competitions the team felt that in order to win, they would have to respond the quickest to questions. The team hopes that moving up will be more focused on the content.

“Usually the JV teams will all know [the answer]. They’ll know almost every question, and it’s about how fast you buzz in. It’s a lot different with Varsity. It’s a lot more [about] estimations, guessing, and anticipating the question,” said Jungwirth. 

For the remainder of the Knowledge Bowl season, freshmen Kumail Akram, Dexter Huss, Daniel Jungwirth, Lucas Lawrence, and Greta Winger will be competing on the varsity level in order to feel challenged and be encouraged to increase their skills.