On Saturday, October 28th, four students—sophomores Allison Kowal-Safron, Virginia Cannella, Catherine Kowal-Safron, and freshman Luke McPherson—traveled to Westfield State University to face East Longmeadow in the 57th season of As Schools Match Wits, hosted by Beth Ward. Although the team was not able to come out victorious, it had a great time. The team was coached by Mr. Green and Ms. Lynch, who reflected, “Despite receiving some of the harder questions, our four students did admirably answering the questions and working together as a team. Even though we lost, our team really won because they had a great time. I am very proud of how our As Schools Match Wits team represented Hopkins.” All four team members agree that they “really won” in a way,  “because they had a great time.” Freshman team member Luke McPherson says, “Although we did terrible, our team put forth a tremendous amount of effort and had a lot of fun. It [inside the studio] was very hot and it was strange to see what the set looks like from the player’s point of view because when you see it on TV, you look at the people who can’t see the crowd behind them and all the cameras and all the wiring and it’s very strange.”

As Schools Match Wits is divided into four rounds: a challenge round, two capitalization rounds, and a round similar to Jeopardy in which questions are chosen from different categories. After the first round was over, the match was very close, Hopkins with 65 points and East Longmeadow with 80. Even after the first challenge round, Hopkins was close behind—only down about 25 to 30 points. However, it all seemed to go down from there; during the category round, the Hopkins team did not get questions they knew or were hoping for. Despite all of this, the team as a whole was still able to answer an large amount of questions and have a lot of fun. Overall, the team did a fantastic job and they only have potential to keep getting stronger from here! Be sure to tune in December 31st on WGBY to watch Hopkins compete again!