News

Ardenne High trumps St. Mary

The winning Ardenne High School team - Ricardo Makyn

GOOD PERFORMANCES IN sections one and two by Ardenne High School enabled them to emerge 25-11 winners over St. Mary High in the latest match of the TVJ Schools' Challenge Quiz Competition played yesterday.

During those sections Ardenne amassed a total of 21 points as they outplayed their rural opponents to move into the quarterfinals.

Ardenne established early dominance, going ahead 6-3 midway section one. As Ardenne widened their lead, St. Mary seemed to recoil and by the end of section one the scorers had Ardenne leading 9-5.

During the break between section one and section two the margin of Ardenne's lead was widened courtesy of the judges who adjusted the scores by subtracting a point from St. Mary while awarding a point to Ardenne. Consequently, Ardenne led 10-4 going into section two where teams get three 60-second periods in which to answer as many questions as possible.

St. Mary did very little to cut into Ardenne's lead during the first minute of section, two gaining only one point. Ardenne, on the other hand, pressed home their advantage, gaining five points. They also gained six points during their second minute while St. Mary could only manage two.

Improved

St. Mary High improved in their final minute ,managing four points to end the section on 11 points. They were helped somewhat by Ardenne, who could only muster two additional points to close their third minute. The section ended with Ardenne leading 23-11.

St. Mary High were granted a brief reprieve during the break between rounds when the judges deducted two points from Ardenne High's total. A point was deducted for an English question after the judges ruled that the answer supplied was incorrect. Another point was deducted for an answer given for a general knowledge question. The judges ruled that the answer had come after the bell sounded signalling an end to the section.

During section three or the buzzer section St. Mary tried desperately to recover lost ground. The moved up to 15 points but just as quickly they lost four points to fall back to 11 points. In this section two points are awarded for a correct answer while two are subtracted for an incorrect one.

Ardenne, on the other hand, attempted only four questions, answering three correctly.

Glen Archer, Ardenne's coach, in summing up his team's performance said; "Somebody once said may you have enough failures to keep you humble. I think the margin of victories have been keeping us humble and believing in God an allowing us to work harder."

Peter Samaroo, St. Mary's coach, believed his team performed well despite the defeat. "They did as well as I would have liked," he said. "They didn't win but I have no complaints about their performance. I told them to take chances because of how the match was going and we were way behind. But the margin was wide so they couldn't catch up. I'm proud of them though."

Teams: Ardenne - Andrew McLean (captain), Dane Clarke, Yonique Petgrave and Rasheed Anderson.

St. Mary High - Latoya Campbell (captain), Craig McIntosh, Javed Jaghai and Omar Myers.

In the next match, Kingston College will play Black River High.