Ridgefield High School claims national title in Knowledge Bowl

Shown here last month, Adam Ford, Stuart Swingruber, Asher Anderson, James Haddix, and Emiliana Newell are members of the Ridgefield Spudders Knowledge Bowl team. This past week, the Spudders won the Knowledge Bowl national championship. Photo by Paul Valencia — Shown here last month, Adam Ford, Stuart Swingruber, Asher Anderson, James Haddix, and Emiliana Newell are members of the Ridgefield Spudders Knowledge Bowl team. Recently, the Spudders won the Knowledge Bowl national championship. Photo by Paul Valencia

Spudders were invited to nationals due to their overall excellence

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

One tough round was not enough to keep the Ridgefield Spudders down in Knowledge Bowl.

Today, they are national champions.

(UPDATE: The Ridgefield Knowledge Bowl team has been invited to the Quiz Bowl tournament in Atlanta, and the Ridgefield Public Schools Foundation is having a matching fundraiser for the team. The fundraiser will last from April 29 through May 5, and the foundation will match up to $5,000 donated by the community. To donate, go to: https://www.ridgefieldpsf.org/donate)

“It was truly amazing that we, as a small public school, were able to compete with private prep schools from across the nation,” said Ridgefield senior Stuart Swingruber. “I think our victory truly shows that even the improbable is possible with the steadfast support of one’s teammates and community.”

“Nationals was easily the most exhilarating leg of our journey, as it was the apex of everything that we had worked to achieve all these years in Knowledge Bowl,” said Ridgefield senior Adam Ford. “We hung in there through the grueling hours of competition that was the marathon of knowledge.”

Clark County Today posted a profile on Ridgefield’s Knowledge Bowl team prior to the state competition.

Ridgefield, statistically, was the best team in the state again, but one tough round in the state semifinals left them out of a chance of repeating as state champs.

Based on the team’s overall excellence, though, the Spudders were invited to the national championships, which were held over several hours on Saturday over a Discord server.

“The level of competition in the top rooms at nationals is incredible,” said David Jacobson, Ridgefield’s coach. “There were many dozens of crazy mental feats all day that led to their victory.”

The Spudders are preparing for another competition. Instead of Knowledge Bowl, they have been invited to the National Quiz Bowl Tournament in Atlanta, which begins next week.

For more on the Ridgefield Knowledge Bowl team, see our story from last month here: