Home About Us Activities Athletics Alumni Best of Highland Calendar Campus Access Counseling Departments Feedback IB Program Library News Parent Resources Student / Parent Portal Student Resources Staff Resources Staff Directory Site Map Upload News & Pictures search				Home > Best of Highland > Highland Highlights  Print View Highland's Academic Bowl Team Captures 6th Place Finish 3/27/2008 10:36 AM BACK ROW: Kim Krebs, Gallaudet University Regional Director; Dan Hubin, How are you with your math skills?  Is Language and Literature an area of strength for you?  What about Arts, Science and Technology, Geography, Pop Culture, Sports and Leisure or Current Events?  These are the seven categories that the Highland Park team faced in the Midwest Regional Academic Bowl sponsored by Galluadet University.  Galluadet is in Washington, D.C. and specializes in educating Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals.  The competition was for residential schools for the deaf or mainstream programs, such as Highland. The competition featured 15 teams (one team was unable to make it due to weather) from nine different states.  Teams came from Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Indiana.  The Indiana School for the Deaf hosted the event at their campus in Indianapolis, Indiana. Highland's adventure began with a flight from Minneapolis/St. Paul airport at 7:00 AM on Thursday, February 21, 2008.  The team was to arrive in Indianapolis at 1:10 with a layover in St. Louis. There was supposed to be a check-in process, then a pizza party welcome, a practice game to familiarize players and coaches with the format, and then some ice-breaker activities for the students to get know one another.  Supposed to be, but alas, Highland was stuck in the St. Louis airport for thirteen plus hours!  The team didn't arrive in Indianapolis until nearly midnight.  After a shuttle to the school, it was about 1:15 a.m. before crawling into a bed- dorm room beds that really aren't made for human sleeping! The next morning started bright and early with a seven o'clock breakfast and then a day of competing.  The team's first match was at 9:00 a.m. against the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf.  After trailing through the first two rounds, Highland used a strong third round to win 40-29.  The second match pitted Highland against the Indiana School for the Deaf (the eventual champion).  Highland led throughout the match, but with just a few questions remaining in the last round; Indiana surpassed Highland and won 59-51.  The third match of the day was against the Texas School for the Deaf.  In an excellent and close competition, Highland ended up losing 46-47.  The last match of the day was against the Ohio School for the Deaf.  Highland had its best game of the competition and set the high score for any of the preliminary matches in a 72-25 win. The second day of competition began with a match against the Arkansas School for the Deaf at 8 A.M.  The team was rather sluggish and lost 19-23.  The second match of the day was against the Oklahoma School for the Deaf and Highland won 34-18.  Highland received a win for its last match because of a forfeit by the school that was unable to make it to Indianapolis.  This left Highland's record at 4-3, which was good for 3rd place in the pool and in 6th place for the region. The region has a playoff for the top two teams from each of the two pools.  With the first and second place teams awarded a trip to the national finals held at Galluadet- all expenses paid!  Highland had a young team with no seniors and four first time players.  It leaves coaches great hope that next year's team could be representing Highland Park High School in Washington, D.C. for the national competition. [Back]
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