On Feb. 19th and 20th, 3 teams from SIS’s own History Honor Society (HHS) faced 20 other teams from various nations in a head-to-head History Bowl tournament. For the two varsity teams, it was a challenging fight as they had to finish the preliminary round in the top 8 to qualify for the playoffs.

“A lot of the varsity teams were very strong, so it was a tough battle, but our teamwork was great,” Joon Kim(10), HHS treasurer, said. “Although it was unfortunate that the other two teams couldn’t make it into the playoffs, they still scored very high.”

After making it through 2 teams in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, SIS A entered the finals against the reigning champion team, La Salle Green Hills(LSGH). LSGH A, who were the victors of the last History Bowl gave SIS A quite a challenge, leading in points up to the very final quarter.

However, with some speedy answers by the club president Sean Kim(12), SIS was able to tie LSGH after the final question, the score being tied at 280-280. Hearts raced as the tie-breaker question was read, and buzzed within milliseconds of each other, with SIS coming out on top. After several painstaking seconds of thinking, Sean was able to answer the question at the last second, and SISA won the gold.

“Overall, I was very pleased to see that we had the strongest showing out of my time at History Club with three very strong teams,” James Kowalski, APUSH teacher, said. “I have no doubts about the future of HHS, and I believe that the newer members will improve as the club goes on.”