With its strong finish at the TQBA Online Jamboree, the quiz bowl team from Beckendorff Junior High School in Katy proved themselves worthy to play on a national stage. On May 9, the team represented their school in a 160-team national competition: National Academic Quiz Tournaments' Middle School National Championship Tournament.
Beckendorff Junior High School sent two teams to the 2025 MSNCT. The A team is captained by James Wang, joined by Nicholas Duan, Janak Kulkarni, and Rohan Balan. The B team is captained by Amit Mohammed, joined by Annika Balan, John Birkholz, Aarav Dutta, Shreya Mukherjee, Arnav Vijay, and Alycia Wang. The teams are coached by Sheri Wright.
The team came to the competition with some nationals experience: Rohan Balan, Nicholas Duan, and James Wang played the 2024 Middle School National Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois (near Chicago) and Rohan Balan played the 2023 Middle School National Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois (near Chicago).
Beckendorff A finished with a rank of 21, and a win/loss record of 7-5 (58.3%). Team B was ranked 117, with a 3-5 record and 1715 points. The tournament was won by the Smith A team from Chapel Hill, NC. James Wang, captain of Beckendorff A, won an All-Star award at the tournament, coming in at 24th place in individual awards.
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 seven times before. Most recently, in 2024, they made the playoffs and finished in 33rd place.