With its strong finish at TQBA Winter Roundup, the Beckendorff Junior High School quiz team has earned the right to play on a national stage. On Friday, the team will compete in the 137-team National Academic Quiz Tournaments’ Middle School National Championship Tournament.

Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of four students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers to answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports and popular culture. The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.

Beckendorff has attended the Middle School National Championship Tournament five times before. Most recently, in 2021, they entered three teams, one of which made the playoffs, finishing in tenth place.

Beckendorff may face familiar foes in Rosemont, as Adams (from Fulshear), Kinkaid (from Houston), and Village (from Houston) will also be attending.

The team comes in with some nationals experience: Raghav Ahuja, Aarush Akella, Samin Asif, Aditya Khambekar, Ian Kim, Pragnyan Mallapragada and Sreejit Mukherjee played the 2021 Middle School National Championship Tournament.

Beckendorff will send four teams to the 2022 tournament.

Aditya Khambekar captains the A team and will be joined by Raghav Ahuja, Aarush Akella and An Truong.

Ian Kim captains the B team and will be joined by Ainesh Akella, Arnon Hunt and Pragnyan Mallapragada.

Samin Asif captains the C team and will be joined by Arjun Desikan, Sreejit Mukherjee and Stavya Pallassery.

Advait Nair captains the D team and will be joined by Tharoon Eswar, Henry Yu and Hailong Zhang.

Sheri Wright coaches the teams.