Acton-Boxborough

Acton Boxborough Regional High School
Location: Acton, MA
Coaches	Susan Bohmiller (2011-present)
National Appearances	HSNCT: 2015, 2017, 2018 PACE: 2014
Program Status	Unknown
School Size	Unknown
NAQT Page	link

Acton-Boxborough Regional High School is a public high school in Acton, Massachusetts. The school's quizbowl team formed in 2012.

History

Acton-Boxborough attended their first quizbowl tournament, the 2012 MIT Fall, with no previous quizbowl experience. The team surprisingly finished 6-3 overall, and began actively studying and participating in quiz bowl events. The team consisted of juniors Victor Pavao, Tom Russell, Sarang Yeola, and freshman Spencer Thrope. In the spring 2013, they attended MIT's MITBAT VII, where they finished 7-5. In the fall of 2013, Acton-Boxborough finished 3rd overall at the 2013 MIT Fall, qualifying them for both national tournaments for the first time ever. Membership steadily grew and they were consistently able to field a B team of mostly sophomores. They would finish at or near the top at several Northeast circuit tournaments, but finished 67th overall at PACE.

A-B had a very inconsistent start to the year. They placed 8th at MIT fall. After going 4-1 in prelims, they would go on to get swept in playoffs.They then attended Yale fall where they place tenth out of 27 teams losing out on the top bracket due to a tiebreaker. After they would attend Northeastern where they placed 4th out of ten teams. At AMSA's central MA tournament they went undefeated in prelims. However in playoffs they went 3-4 to place fifth. They also attended Harvard fall where they went 3-2 in prelims but due to a tiebreaker they would not make the top bracket. They would finish 6-4 at Harvard. the last tournament of 2014 was LIMIT where A-B place 3rd, qualifying for nationals with a 9-3 record and a 4-0 record in prelims.A-B's next tournament was BHASAT where they went 2-1 in prelims and went 3-4 in playoffs to finish 12th overall. At HSAPQ states A-B would finish 4th overall. At NAQT states A-B would place 3rd overall losing a close tiebreaker game to AMSA for second place. A-B finished the year by attending HSNCT where they went 4-6 and placed 169th. However, Josh Xiong was named an all-star for the tournament.

A new wave of players, including Prat Hegde, Sky Li, and Caleb Trotz, led the A team in the 2017-2018 season. They finished in 2nd at 2017 MIT Fall, but had tough performances at HFT and Lexington's LIIMIT. However, due to consistent studying and practice, they had a great performance at 2018 HSNCT. Several players had stunning individual performances. A recording of the devastating loss to McLean can be heard https://s3.amazonaws.com/naqt-static/podcasts/2018-hsnct/17.mp3. They finished in 32nd with an 8-5 overall record, Acton-Boxborough's best performance at a national tournament.

Status

Basil Sousounis currently leads the A team in performance, consistently attending local tournaments and finishing at or near the top. The team will be attending the 2019 HSNCT.

Current Roster

Basil Sousounis (junior)
Nethra Prasanna (senior)
Vivek Aysola (sophomore)
Rama Nagireddy (sophomore)
Sam Qiu (sophomore)
Stephan Shishkov (sophomore)
Chris Sousounis (sophomore)
Sid Warrier (sophomore)
Maggie Fernald (freshman)
Ryan Fletcher (freshman)
Alex Wang (freshman)
Nathan Wolf (freshman)

Alumni

(*) indicates active quizbowl community member

Prat Hegde, captain, Northeastern
Sky Li*, captain, Toronto
Caleb Trotz, captain, Brown
Eric Hua, Georgetown
Max Kim, Bentley
Victor Wang, Waterloo
Sam Maffa (2017-2018), Brown
Anna Li (2017-2018), UMass Amherst
Ari Xuan (11)
Spencer Thrope (2012-2016), captain, Virginia Tech
Aidan Pavao (2014-2016), Boston College
Alex Kim
Sid Salunkhe (2014-2016), Georgia Tech
Kevin Hu
Josh Xiong* (2014-2015), MIT
Kevin Liu (2013-2014), Case Western
Jeff Gao (2013-2014), UNH
Tom Russell (2012-2014), captain, Purdue
Sarang Yeola* (2012-2014), Maryland
Victor Pavao* (2012-2014), Villanova