Outgunned Marysville-Pilchuck wins Hi-Q championship at Everett Community College

Published 11:43 pm Tuesday, March 24, 2009

STANWOOD — With just four competitors, Marysville-Pilchuck High School was outnumbered but not intimidated during the annual Everett Community College Hi-Q championship Tuesday.

Marysville-Pilchuck defeated defending champion Arlington High and Stanwood High in the finals, nearly three months after 21 schools from Snohomish and Island counties began their seasons.

Marysville fielded a small squad after potential teammates bowed out because of busy academic and extracurricular schedules before the season started.

It was a hardworking and self-­motivated group, said MPHS adviser Jeff Riechel.

“I’m pretty much the chauffeur,” Riechel said. “They get the work done themselves and I have never had a team spend so much time studying and quizzing each other.”

In the past, Riechel usually has had twice as many students, which allows them to focus on specific topics, such as Shakespeare, geography or U.S. and art history.

“These guys just said, ‘No problem,’ ” Riechel said.

The quartet — seniors Michael Doronio, Zach Henderson and Nate Verge and junior Danny Ekdahl — shared responsibility for studying each discipline, which made it possible to test each other’s knowledge but left blind spots in the more obscure subjects.

They knew such things as Teddy Roosevelt’s political party in 1912 was the Progressive Party, that the name of the sweatshop where 146 women died in a fire in 1911 was called Triangle Shirtwaist Co. and that Lord Lackbeard was Claudio in Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”

They correctly answered physics and math questions and all held their breath when Arlington incorrectly answered the final toss-up question that could have tied the score.

Doronio, who has participated in Hi-Q since his sophomore year, acknowledged he was a little surprised by how successful his team was this year, given its size. “I was hoping we would do well, but I wasn’t counting on it,” he said.

Marysville had a healthy rooting section of parents and fellow students who were bused to Stanwood High for the big meet.

The chance to match wits with students from other schools is rewarding, Henderson said.

“I have never really been good at sports,” Henderson said. “It’s a way to represent my school. This is my sport.”

Gretchen Rowe, the Hi-Q coordinator from Everett Community College, said she has been impressed throughout the season by how bright and modest the participants have been.

“These kids have every right to be arrogant but they are not,” she said. “It really is an inspiring group of kids.”

EvCC and Fred Meyer sponsored Tuesday’s competition.

Arlington should have a strong team returning next year, said Jane Jaslow, one of two AHS advisers. Just one of seven members was a senior. Arlington’s team included Amye Ellsworth, Tyler Gjersee, Nick Goolsbee, Ryan Jones, Corinne McClure, Eric McElroy and David Taft-Farren.

One of the hardest parts of Hi-Q is knowing the answer to questions being asked of other teams and not being able to say anything until their time runs out, said Christy Swartz, a Stanwood High School student.

“I’m a little obsessive with physics,” said Swartz, who recently learned that she had been accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Sometimes we might know all the questions.”

Other members of the Stanwood team are Jimmy Besancon, Derek Britain, Sam Carter, Sarah Holmes, Ryan Miller, Teague Nelson, Briana Palmer, John Parker, Rebecca Raible and Kallen Shaughnessy.

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.