Hinsdale Central
| Hinsdale Central Red Devils | |
| |
|---|---|
| Location: Hinsdale, Illinois | |
| Coaches | Alan McCloud |
| State Championships | 1992 IHSA |
| Program Status | Unknown |
| School Size | Unknown |
| NAQT Page | link |
Hinsdale Central High School is a District 86 public high school in Hinsdale, Illinois, near Chicago. It competes in the West Suburban Conference and Class AA, the large school division, of the Illinois High School Association's (IHSA) State Championship Series.
Elementary districts that feed into the school include: MSD60 (Westview Hills Middle School), GSD62 (Gower Middle School), D181 (Hinsdale Middle School and Clarendon Hills Middle School), BSD53 (Butler Jr. High), as well as Catholic and private schools, notably St. Isaac Jogues and Avery Coonley. Of those schools, only Westview Hills, St. Isaac Jogues, and Gower have the quiz bowl programs of any sort, with the first two being the largest teams, though there are surprisingly no current high school players from either school. Its large talent pool composed of a substantial (not mutually exclusive) Asian and upper-class population allows the school to excel in many sports and activities, though quiz bowl typically is not one of them.
Team Members
| 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atharv Garje | Andrew Coyner | JD Randell | -- |
| Ayan Agarwal | Sunny Chen | ||
| Harrison Wang | Jack Mueller | ||
| Michael Noonan | Hugo Zoells | ||
| Peyton Pielet | BJ Ryan | ||
| ' | Ankush Bajaj | ||
| James Zhou | |||
| Steven Botsoe | |||
| Anika Arvanitis | |||
| Ian Sokolowski | |||
| Jack Mason | |||
| Tony Yang |
History
Early Years
The team was coached by Donna Watkins throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Under her, the team won the 1992 IHSA State Championship Tournament and finished 2nd in 1998 and 2002, racking up a succession of conference, regional, and sectional titles in the process. Eric Jensen, her last assistant coach, head coached for a few years before switching back to assistant coach, with Alan McCloud taking over as the new (and current) head coach.
The team usually found itself near the top of the conference, and advanced to IHSA State numerous times due to being in an easy Sectional (which it is not in anymore), though it was never really competitive or important in the Illinois quiz bowl scene.
2013-2014
Starting in the 2013-2014 school year, with the graduation of its entire 2012-13 Varsity team (with the exception of a junior who quit in December), Hinsdale Central was left with a large leadership vacuum, due to extremely weak retention of '14 and '15 players. In addition, that year's freshman recruiting class was also weak, as only 5 freshmen were left by the end of the season. The sophomores proved to be highly motivated, though, surpassing the previous team in all aspects and bringing the program to new heights. The all sophomore and freshman team showed many signs of potential as the season went on, with decent placement and wins at major tournaments, many of which were attended unaffiliated.
As expected, the team maintained recent dominance within the West Suburban Conference, going undefeated for 15 games. The team won the semifinal and final matches even with top scorer Sunny Chen absent.
Individual Awards
IHSSBCA All-Sectional
- Sunny Chen (2014)
- James Zhou (2014)
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