Fisher Catholic

William V. Fisher Catholic H.S. (OH)
Location: Lancaster, OH
Coaches	Lynn Stevenson
State Championships	OAC: 2004, 2006; NAQT: 2006
National Championships	N/A
Program Status	Unknown
School Size	Unknown
NAQT Page	link

William V. Fisher Catholic High School is a small private school located in Lancaster, Ohio. Its quizbowl team was founded in the 1980's by Lynn Stevenson, who has been its one and only head coach.

History

Fisher Catholic's quiz bowl team was founded in the 1980's by teacher Lynn Stevenson, social studies and English teacher at the school. Among the early years of the quiz bowl team featured Michael Sedlack, a pupil of Stevenson's whose own passion for academic competition inspired him to help out coach Stevenson with the team after he graduated, such as driving the team to competition, serving as a moderator to subsidize the team's fees and even teaching the team basic quiz bowl stuff and preparing them for competition. Currently, coach Sedlack helps the team learn basic stuff in science, since the students do not learn enough of the basics in their own science classes (for instance, Avogadro's Number is not introduced until May in sophomore Chemistry).

Fisher Catholic has long been an area powerhouse in the Columbus area and often features competitive squads at the state level. Unlike most schools, Fisher Catholic has a very small student population, with less then 225 students comprising the student body in grades 9-12, and they are often one of the smallest schools at HSNCT. Despite this, Fisher Catholic has won the OAC title in both 2004 and 2006 for the entire state of Ohio, regardless of school size, and won an NAQT state title in 2006 in Division II.

However, in spite of their success at the local, regional and state levels, recently the team's performance had been lackluster in the 2009 and 2010 seasons as a result of zero motivation to get better, exhibiting poor performances at local tournaments.

2010-2011

It was in this year that the Fisher Catholic quiz bowl team saw the addition of four promising young freshmen at the beginning of the year; Tom Moore, Austin Reid, Eric Gundelfinger and Corey Kennedy. Initially, within two weeks of the first practice, freshman Austin Reid had broken into the team's "top five" with his deep knowledge of antiquity, Jewish things, current events and Geography, all of which made him valuable in NAQT events. Tom Moore, who had strong knowledge in history, sports, some random stuff, hadn't broken through to the other side until December, where his desire to get better had quickly made him the #2 player on the team. During that timeframe, the team went to the Tippecanoe Academic Challenge XV on an A-set with a line-up featuring Moore, Reid, sophomore Cawood Boone and junior Kyle Ventura. While Tom hadn't grasped the canon and didn't know anything about getting better, he led the team in scoring with a heavily unimpressive statline of 1-13-1 over seven games, but Austin Reid's performance was quite impressive after having powered three straight questions on Detroit Catholic Central's A team. Even though the team would win their first two games against local schools Bellefontaine and Greenville, they'd then prepare to get smacked by a Joe Nutter-led Walnut Hills squad, Olmsted Falls A, Danville, DCC and Celina High School. After that experience, Tom had seen that it sucked to suck, and then inspired himself to work to where he would be on the other side of that beatdown.

The team failed to win either of the two local leagues they competed in (where they held a long streak of winning both), and were sent to OAC Regionals on a wild card to the East Central regional held in Steubenville.

The senior corps, who grew to hate Tom Moore because he actually answered questions, lost all motivation to even do anything, and are regarded as a bunch of losers. The team would go on to get bounced in the third round of OAC regionals, finish HSNCT at 4-6, by way of winning their last two games. During the course of the year, the team would later add freshman Luke Schmelzer and sophomores Ethan Novena and Grant Smith.

2011-2012

With the addition of freshman Brandon Shull, whose deep knowledge in history, some literature and science even before joining the quiz bowl team, Fisher Catholic was on the rebound. The first tossup/bonus tournament the team attended that season was the Tippecanoe Academic Challenge XVI held at Tippecanoe High School. Even though Brandon wasn't their, Fisher Catholic's varsity squad, led by Moore, finished tied for third along with a Sam Blizzard led Northmont High School, and behind Walnut Hills and Sycamore. This time, the team had been on the other side of the beatdowns handed to them last year, even though the only opponent that beat the team last year that they played this year was Celina, Fisher beat the squad 385-80, a year after Celina had just pantsed the team 250-120. Tom had earned the team some enmity from the Celina squad after he had called them on conferring on a tossup very late in the game.

The team would later go on to enjoy relative success by top bracket finishes at every tossup/bonus tournament they attended that year, in addition to a second place finish at Northmont's pyramidal OAC. The squad would go on to win the Southeast Ohio regional undefeated, and finished third in their bracket at OAC states, giving them a finish of tied for fifth in the state. After winning their round 15 game, Fisher would advance into the playoff stage of HSNCT for the first time in the program's history. Interestingly enough, 97% of the tossup conversion of the team came from the sophomores and freshman that made the trip to Atlanta.

Notable Alumni

• Michael Sedlack - current assistant coach
• Ben Thimmes
• Sarah Hickman
• Leo Guinan
• Kyle Rainier
• Christine Kennedy
• Steven Wellstead
• Jacob Snider
• Madellyn Kennedy
• Alexis Preskar
• Matthew Ford

Current Members

• Robert "Grant" Smith (Class of 2013)
• Ethan Novena (Class of 2013)
• Cawood Boone (Class of 2013)
• Clayton Walters (Class of 2013)
• Kathleen Sylvester (Class of 2013)
• Tom Moore (Class of 2014)
• Luke Schmelzer (Class of 2014)
• Austin Reid (Class of 2014)
• Eric Gundelfinger (Class of 2014)
• Chris Heaney (Class of 2014)
• Corey Kennedy (Class of 2014)
• Brandon Shull (Class of 2015)
• McKinley Walton (Class of 2015)
• Andrew Smith (Class of 2015)
• Allie McCrady (Class of 2015)