St. Margaret's

St. Margaret's
Location: San Juan Capistrano, CA
Club Presidents	Nate Kang
Coaches	Simon Fellowes (de facto)
State Championships	2019 (NHBB San Diego), 2020 (NHBB Los Angeles)
National Championships	none
National Appearances	SSNCT: 2022, 7th place (Open) NHBB: 2019, 19th place (JV Bowl)
Program Status	Active
School Size	474 in Upper School
NAQT Page	link

The St. Margaret's quizbowl team (also sometimes listed as "St. Margaret's Episcopal") have represented the Tartans of St. Margaret's Episcopal School in the SoCal circuit since the beginning of the 2018–19 high school season. Both programs were established in 2018 by Nate Kang during his freshman year.

History

St. Margaret's went just 2–6 playing varsity in their debut tournament, Del Norte Edgehog II, in December 2018. In February 2019, at the San Diego NHBB tournament, St. Margaret's took home its first trophy, winning the history bowl regional championship in the JV division. Going 6–0 in the competition, SMES defeated an Arcadia team led by a freshman Amogh Kulkarni by 70 in the final. Nate played solo in the bowl at this tournament and also won the regional championship in the bee on the same day.

In April 2019, Kang soloed St. Margaret's to a 10–4 record at nats, good for a 19th place finish nationwide at the 2019 National History Bowl national championships in Arlington, VA.

In November 2019, Nate was joined for the first time by teammates (fellow sophomores Alex Fournier and Hunter Smith), as the Tartans went 4–6 at Triton Fall at UCSD. Also during the 2019–20 season, St. Margaret's won their 2nd-straight JV history bowl regional title at USC behind Kang and Fournier, going 7–0. Largely due to the cancellation of spring tourneys as a result of COVID-19, SMES only played at one general QB tournament during the 2019–20 season. They were ranked 7th in SoCal going into the 2020–21 season in a piece by Westview's Nick Dai.

In the 2021–22 year, St. Margaret's qualified for that season's editions of the HSNCT, SSNCT, and PACE NSC–– all firsts in program history.

At the 2022 SSNCT, SMES fielded a team of senior Nate Kang and sophomores Nate Minton and Levon Alyanakian. They went 11–4 (8–2 prelims) en route to finishing in 7th Place in the "Open" classification. Kang placed 4th in individual scoring in the division, garnering tournament All-Star honors. After initially being seeded #10 entering playoffs, SMES' run in the knockout stages included a win over St. Mark's B–– the team that handed the national champions (St. Mark's A) their sole loss of the tournament–– before the Tartans were eliminated by eventual runners-up BASIS McLean.

Current roster

• Nate Kang (captain)
• Alex Fournier
• Hunter Smith
• Levon Alyanakian
• Nate Minton
• Eileen Sadati
• Ryan Sheikholeslami
• Colin Kleinhanzl