Edison Dominant in Firelands Challenge
Cluster of Teams Next in Round I...
...Edison High School’s Firelands Challenge Team picked up exactly where it left off last year with a dominating performance in the first round matches of this season. With a score of 65 in its match with Bellevue and Western Reserve, Edison is 20 points ahead of the next closest competitor.
Teams this year are having to address a new match format due to the pandemic. Only two team members participate at a time and are kept physically distant from each other. New procedures have been implemented to keep table surfaces clean and to limit the amount of contact with surfaces.
All of the first round teams adapted to the new format very well, however Edison showed that nothing was going to stop it from scoring points. It held an eight point lead after the first segment of its match and a 16 point lead at the mid-point before finishing 34 points ahead of Bellevue and 38 points ahead of Western Reserve.
Other teams winning their matches include Norwalk defeating Huron and Port Clinton with Monroeville besting Lakota and Danbury. Sandusky defeated Margaretta and South Central. In the final match, Norwalk St Paul posted a victory over Willard and Sandusky St. Mary.
The keys to success varied with the teams. Norwalk scored seven points in the final Lightning Round to pull ahead in its match. Monroeville broke out to an early 14 point lead to win its match. Sandusky relied on a big performance in the Team Choice category to win. St. Paul closed out its match with the most points in the final Toss-up category and the final Lightning Round.
Two teams, Oak Harbor and Perkins, had byes in the first round of the academic competition. They are scheduled to play their first matches next week.
The top five teams and their scores after Round I are:
- Edison 65
- Monroeville 45
- St. Paul 45
- Norwalk 43
- Huron 38