West Chester Henderson
| West Chester B. Reed Henderson Senior High School | |
| |
|---|---|
| Location: West Chester, PA | |
| Coaches | Steve Sobieck and Bruce Kozak |
| State Championships | 2011, 2012 PSAC |
| National Appearances | 2016 HSNCT, 2017 HSNCT, 2018 HSNCT, 2019 HSNCT |
| Program Status | Active |
| School Size | ~1300 |
| NAQT Page | link |
B. Reed Henderson is a public school in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Team History
The Henderson High school team has existed since at least the early 1990s. Henderson soley played on poor quality local questions until 2009. Prior to this period, Henderson had little on the buzzer sucess (with just one championship in the county format), but produced several county players of the year.
Under the tutelage of coach Steve Sobieck, the team began to play good tournaments starting with PHSAT and CSWIFT. After a period of mixed focus on local and pyramidal quizbowl, the team has focused solely on the pyramidal circuit. They have been one of the stronger schools in Philadelphia area high school quizbowl since that time, although until late 2015 they had never won an all-subject tournament. This first win occurred with the team rallying for a 260 point comeback against Cedar Crest in the finals at Manheim Township's winter invitational. They have also frequently competed at National History Bee and Bowl events. To date Henderson's A teams have never had a losing season. They made their nationals debut at HSNCT in 2016 where they tied for 34th place and finished 2nd among PA teams attending the tournament. Henderson bettered this performance at HSNCT in 2019, where they tied for 12th out of 336 competing teams.
Henderson hosts the Henderson Invitational high school tournament every November.
Notable Accomplishments
- T-12th Place, 2019 HSNCT
- T-34th Place, 2016 HSNCT
- 1st Place, Pennsylvania State Academic Competition, 2011 and 2012
- 1st Place, Pennsylvania NHBB States, 2011 and 2013
- 1st Place, Manheim Township Academic Challenge, 2015
- 1st Place, Philly Fall Invitational, 2019
- 2nd Place, GVQBT, 2014
- 2nd Place, Pennsylvania State Academic Competition, 2016
- 2nd Place, Penn State Spring Academic Bowl, 2016
- 2nd Place, Lehigh Valley Invitational, 2017
- 2nd Place, Manheim Township Academic Challenge, 2018
- 3rd Place, Lehigh Valley Invitational, 2016
- 3rd Place, Philly Fall Invitational, 2018
- 3rd Place, Pennsylvania State Academic Competition, 2019
Notable Alumni
- Ben Herman, Class of 2011
- Ryan Mullner, Class of 2011
- Griffin Cahill, Class of 2014
- Maggie Mitchell, Class of 2014
- Ashish Kumbhardare, Class of 2016
- Nick Luca, Class of 2016
- Alex Sankaran, Class of 2016
- David Smoczynski, Class of 2016
- Aravind Sivaram, Class of 2018
- Siddharth Chenrayan, Class of 2019
- Adam Fernandes, Class of 2019
- Vijay Anne
- Vikram Chodapaneedi