The De Soto High School varsity Scholars Bowl team competed in its first meets of the season at Bonner Springs High School on Oct. 17 and at St. James Academy on Oct. 21.

The team went team went 5-3 in rounds at the BSHS tournament.

“The Bonner meet was wild.  Everyone at that meet is inexperienced, including the moderators, so it’s fun,” said senior team member Kay Craven.

The team went 5-4 at the St. James meet. They advanced to the final rounds but were defeated by Olathe North High School.

“St. James went pretty well. We played a lot of really big schools like Blue Valley and Olathe schools,” said senior team member Elizabeth Seidl. “Their questions are sometimes frustrating on top of that because they don’t follow the typical outline. We were really excited about how we did because we didn’t get beat by more than 10 or 20 points every round.”

The team has been holding more intense practices than in the past in order to start the season off right.

“We’ve been practicing more this year. We’ve started practicing Monday through Friday where we usually practicing Tuesday through Thursday. We’ve been trying to give ourselves the maximum time to do practice rounds, and now we’re proofing questions for our own tournaments,” Seidl said.

Seidl also puts in effort outside of regular practice time.

“For me personally, I’ve been doing a lot of Quizlet. I’m focusing on subjects and refreshing my knowledge,” Seidl said.

The team placed third at the 5A State tournament last year, and is trying to return to state again this year.

“I think state is in the cards for us this year. You don’t want to catch your chickens before they hatch because 5A is definitely tougher, but I think we have a really strong team,” Seidl said.