Hutton Honors College

Honors Residential Community College Bowl Team Advances to Regionals

The Honors Residential Community at Forest can now boast about having masters of trivia in their midst.

The College Bowl team, composed of four residents, recently won a tournament against six other teams on campus and will be going on to regional competition on February 21.

This is the first year the HRC has had a team. Tyler Bond, a sophomore from Edmond, Okla., formed it shortly before the first tournament when their RA, John Scrofano suggested that a team would be a great idea.

"We just kind of put the team together, went to the tournament, and won," says Bond.

Cory and Todd Aiello, both sophomores from Avon, Ind. Jumped on board, having both been on teams in high school. Troy Alexander, a junior from Noblesville, Ind., was the last to join up.

"Tyler said to me 'Hey we have a team set up but we need a science person,' so I joined," said Alexander.

Though, not everyone on the team is pigeonholed into different trivia categories. Bond says he is more focused on literature, but everyone is able to answer a broad range of questions.

Games are fast. They are divided into two halves, each lasting eight minutes. Armed with television game show- style buzzers, the team can be faced with questions on almost any subject, from math and science to pop culture.

There are bonus questions on which team members are allowed to confer with each other, and toss-up question in which the team stands to lose five points if wrong. Patience pays. It is best to wait until a question is read all the way through.

"A lot of the questions are written to lead you on," says Alexander.

The regionals will be hosted by Notre Dame. Their travel expenses have been paid for by IMU Activities Board, and the Honors College has also helped the team in many ways.

"The Honors College has given us lots of support. Our RA has made an effort to get a lot of people to come out and see us compete, and the Honors College is also paying for a few people to come with us to regionals," said Todd Aiello.

The team is optimistic about its upcoming challenge. "We think we're well rounded enough to be really competitive," said Cory Aiello.

If the team is successful at Notre Dame, they will compete in a national tournament in Philadelphia this spring.

Mercedes Rodriguez