Liberty Quiz Bowl team earns 15 ACF Fall tournament wins

On Oct. 14, the Liberty University Quiz Bowl team finished with 15 wins at the Academic Competition Federation (ACF) Fall tournament at the University of North Carolina, beating Duke twice, the University of North Carolina four times, Virginia Tech three times, and Clemson three times. The novice team, composed of all freshmen, placed first in its bracket after beating Virginia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina, and Duke.

Dr. Jim Nutter, the quiz bowl head coach, also noted that the varsity team was comprised of almost completely sophomores, including the varsity team captain Emma Zajonc.

“For our varsity team, we graduated four seniors last year, so we had only one returning player from that team,” Nutter said. “Our top three players from our novice team were ‘double promoted’ to our varsity team this year, skipping the JV team.”

Varsity team sophomore Josh Schmidt placed 13th overall out of 83 competitors at the tournament with a 39 points-per-game average.

Quiz Bowl, often called the “varsity sport of the mind,” is part of Liberty’s Honors Program and includes players from a variety of majors. Competitions resemble the game show “Jeopardy!” with teams buzzing in to answer questions about literature, history, geography, government, the sciences, math, art, popular culture, and sports.

The team will travel to the University of Virginia next on Nov. 11 for the AFC Winter tournament.