The Palo Alto High School Fillmore team placed last in the annual trivia contest due to a 105 point penalty for arriving 25 minutes late to the adjudication session.
“Unfortunately, Paly came in last place because of a penalty,” team captain senior Ryan Brenner said. “We were 21 minutes late to the drop off because we were having problems with our documentation.”
The competition ended on Monday at Woodside High School where senior team captains Brenner, Emma Ruder and Tyralyn Tran argued for points along with competing teams from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The team lost a substantial number of points due to the late penalty, which is five points per minute late, according to Brenner. The maximum number of points that a team can score is 500.
“The team captains decided collectively that it was better to have a full documentation and get scored on everything that we looked for, rather than make the deadline and not even have a chance to see if we got questions right,” Brenner said.
Castilleja won first place again this year, and were it not for the penalty, Paly would have tied for second with Gunn High School and Woodside High School.
“The hunt overall was much easier this year compared to last year,” Brenner said. “We did have less help and maybe only one or two new team members, but the questions were much easier to find documentation for.”
For the first time in hunt history, partial credit was awarded to questions if full documentation was not present, resulting in scores 50 to 60 points higher than last year’s.
“Unfortunately, because of the partial credit, the scoring took much longer — three hours longer this year,” Brenner said. “We were all ready to go home by the end of the night.”
Teacher adviser Arne Lim said he was very pleased with the team’s performance.
“This fact [penalized points] did not prevent us from having fun and realizing what was accomplished,” Lim said. “So we finished well, held our heads high, laughed and enjoyed the moment.”
Background information and a preview of this event can be found here.