The winning Calabar team. - Carlington Wilmot
THE HOPES OF Wolmerians and their supporters were dashed when Wolmer's High School for Boys' exited the Schools' Challenge Quiz competition after a 24-11 loss to Calabar High School.
Wolmer's Boys' sister school - Wolmer's High School for Girls' - exited the competition the day before after their loss to Manchester High School.
The Wolmer's Boys' versus Calabar match was the third quarter final match of the competition and was aired on TVJ last night. Calabar will play the winner of the Kingston College - Ardenne encounter in the semi-finals.
Wolmer's Boys' started the game off on a sound footing, leading Calabar High in the first two sections of the match.
In the first section, questions are posed alternately to each team to be answered; Wolmer's Boys' gained eight points out of a possible 17 points. Calabar got only five out of their 17.
The second section saw Wolmer's Boys' once again getting the better of their Red Hills Road opponents. In that section teams are given three alternate one-minute time periods within which to answer as many questions as possible.
In their first minute Wolmer's Boys' pushed their score to 13 points. Meanwhile Calabar moved up to nine. It was also in that first minute, that Calabar missed a question to which they should have known the answer. They were asked "which boys' school scored the most points at the final day of the recently concluded VMBS Boys' Championships?" The Calabar team responded: "Kingston College". The correct answer was Calabar.
The second minute saw both teams adding more points to their score, with Wolmer's Boys' on 18 to Calabar's 14.
The section ended with Wolmer's Boys' on 19 points and Calabar three behind on 16. That was the last time Wolmer's Boys' managed to have any lead over their opponents.
In the third and final section of the match, questions are posed and teams get the chance to respond by pressing a buzzer before their opponents. Teams are awarded two points for each correct answer and lose two points for each incorrect answer. Calabar maximised the opportunity to close out the Wolmer's Boy's team by answering the first two questions correctly.
At the same time, the Wolmer's Boys' team appeared to fall apart at the seams, as some members of the team started pressing the buzzer before the questions were completed, causing the team to lose points.
Then, there were those questions which the Wolmer's Boys' team just got wrong. In that round they attempted eight questions, they got only two of them correct.
Calabar also attempted eight questions in that round, however, they got six of them correct.
At the end of the match, Calabar's captain, Patrick Barrett, told THE STAR that they relied on a higher power to see the team through. "I was kind of worried in the first two sections, and then I remembered their was a fifth person on our side, and He would see us through."
Sounding an ominous warning to their next opponents, Barrett said, "I expect us to be in the finals, that is our next goal."
Wolmer's Boys' team captain, Raemur Bedward, accepted the defeat graciously. "We lost. They were a better prepared team," he said.
TEAMS
Calabar: Barrett, Aldion Lee, Samora Smellie and Adrian Beadle.
Wolmer's Boys': Bedward, Andre Allen, Charles Ball and Kevin Brown.
