First Ever Ridgeline State Champions

By Nina Culver Splash contributor

A small group of junior and senior boys at Ridgeline High School in Liberty Lake have cemented their place in school history by bringing home the school’s first ever state championship – in Knowledge Bowl.

Varsity Knowledge Bowl club advisor Suzanne Smith likens Knowledge Bowl to a largescale game of Jeopardy, with 50 questions in each round of play that can touch on history, science, geography, geology, literature and math. Once a team rings in, they have 15 seconds to provide the correct answer.

Smith was the Knowledge Bowl advisor at University High School and then Central Valley High School before moving to Ridgeline two years ago when the school opened. “I brought half my team with me,” she said.

Each team member has a specialty, an area of knowledge they excel in. Having a wide array of specialties helps the team work together to win. “They call me the rock guy,” said junior Zander Palm, who has expertise in geology. “I like space and chemistry.”

Team captain Callen Johnson, a senior, specializes in history, geography and anything having to do with Assassin’s Creed. Senior Jake Wharton is a bit of a throwback, specializing in pop culture – particularly from the 1970s – and literature. Senior Brock Brito likes math, science and streams while junior Nick Rahm is more of a generalist and also specializes in math, and finally senior Evan Anderson who also specializes in math.

The team members all knew each other outside of Knowledge

Bowl and recruited each other to join. Palm said he got his start his freshman year, when school was online. “I just needed something to do,” he said.

He realized that participating in Knowledge Bowl was easy to do online at a time when other clubs had to shut down.

Johnson learned about the club during his freshman year at Central Valley High School when he stumbled on it during a club fair. It sounded interesting and he convinced Wharton to join him. “We enjoyed it a ton,” he said. “We kept coming back.”

None of them say they’ve spent a lot of time studying for the Knowledge Bowl. They rely on what they’re learning in their classes and what they’ve picked up while learning their special interests. It’s not unusual to see a question come up in the Knowledge Bowl that they’ve just reviewed in class.

Competing was more difficult and not as fun during the height of the pandemic, when everything was held over Zoom. “It’s not anything that disadvantaged us over any other group,” said Brito.

“It affected everyone the same.”

The team is proud of what Wharton calls their unconventional playing style. They’re not quiet and studious, communicating in hushed whispers. “We’ll be loud and know the answers,” said Johnson.

“We usually know the answer four seconds in. We just have fun with it. We keep it light.”

Smith said the team deliberately doesn’t answer questions right away. “They know the answer and they wait until the absolute last second to answer,” she said.

The team members confess that sometimes they’ve waited a bit too long and miss their chance to answer a question before time runs out. But they say that even with those errors, they’re sticking with their strategy.

Smith said the strategy seems to frustrate their competition at times. “Some teams get angry when they don’t get it,” she said. “Then it’s not fun anymore.”

The team struggled a bit this year, placing fourth in the Greater Spokane League competition and then fifth in Regionals. “We had a rocky start to the season, but we kicked it into high gear,” said Wharton.

They thought they might take fifth or sixth place at State as well, particularly since they were going up against private, west-side schools. “We’re a newer school,” Palm said.

The State competition was four rounds of 50 questions, followed by a written round of about 50 written, multiple choice questions. Even though the questions were multiple choice, they were by no means easy, Smith said. “They’re harder,” she said. “I would say they’re more college level questions.”

As the competition went on, the Ridgeline team had to win a tiebreaker twice. The group was pleased to take first place at the end of the day. “It ended up being kind of a Cinderella season,” Wharton said.

“It’s really cool,” said Johnson. “I think we’re all really proud of it.”

The juniors on the team are already making plans for next year. Palm has been selected as the next team captain based on seniority and consensus of the other members. The captain is the one who answers each question and sometimes if there are two possibilities, the captain has to pick which answer to go with.

“Sometimes you have to decide between what the team says and my opinion,” Johnson said.

Johnson admits that sometimes he’s chosen to go with what turns out to be the wrong answer. But everyone just moves on and gets ready for the next question, the next round, the next state competition.