SAYRE - Montrose High School won the Scholarship Challenge qualifier round on Saturday, earning the school a spot in the quiz competition's finals on March 9 in Sayre.
The championship match of Saturday's qualifier pitted Montrose against Athens High, and the lead see-sawed between the two teams during the first half of the match. Montrose pulled ahead for the last time during the match by correctly identifying the name of a dairy product which is 50 percent milk and 50 percent cream (it's half-and-half).
Montrose then continued to amass points by correctly answering a string of questions, such as: "As a noun, it can be part of a fence, but the same four letters, as prefix, means "after." What is this four-letter sequence? (The answer is "post").
The final score of the day's championship match was Montrose 160, Athens 40.
Besides Montrose, the teams in the finals will be Mountain View High School, Elmira Free Academy, and Wellsboro High. The winning team in the finals takes home $3,000 for their school and the Kwasnoski Cup.
Montrose won the Scholarship Challenge competition last year.
In the first match of the day on Saturday, Athens beat Wyalusing High, 180 to 10.
Then Montrose outscored Towanda High, 190 to 60.
In the third match, Athens beat Sullivan County High School 90 to 40.
One school that was scheduled to participate in Saturday's competition, Groton High School from the Ithaca, N.Y., area, failed to show up.
Groton had not participated in Scholarship Challenge in past years, and was unable to field a team this year, according to an organizer of Scholarship Challenge.
As the second-place finisher on Saturday, the Athens High Wildcats took home $350 for their school.
"You seem to take home cash every year," Scholarship Challenge host Chuck Carver told the Athens coach, Terry Bustin.
In fact, Athens High Scholarship Challenge teams have won a total of $13,650 for their school over the 32-year history of Scholarship Challenge, more than any other school, Bustin said in an interview.
This year, 23 high schools are competing in the Scholarship Challenge competition, which is sponsored by WATS/WAVR radio and First Citizens Community Bank.
Saturday's qualifier round took place in the auditorium of the Carl Patterson Education Building on Guthrie's campus in Sayre.
The March 9 finals begin at noon.
James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or email: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.
