NWSCC Scholars Bowl team places 10th in nationals
PHIL CAMPBELL – The Northwest Shoals Community College Scholars Bowl placed 10th on Saturday in the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) Community College Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois.
The team had a record of 7-4 to finish 10th.
“We tied for second in our division,” said Coach Bradley Pool. “Our team captain, Dalton Stults, had the highest score out of 105 players. I’m very proud of our team.”
CONTRIBUTED/BRADLEY POOL – NWSCC Scholars Bowl team captain Dalton Stults earned the highest score out of the national competition last weekend.
Stults, the NWSCC team captain, had a scoring average of 83.96.
Pool said the team did “a great job,” noting Stults has been the top scorer at all the tournaments.
“Since I’ve been coach, this is the third time we’ve gone to nationals, but our team went several times before I was the coach. I’ve been coaching the team since 2020. We usually participate in around six competitions. Our national competition took place before our state competition, which isn’t until April.”
“I’m really excited,” Stults said of his and the team’s weekend performances. “I feel like we did pretty good. It was a lot of fun. This is my first year playing at Northwest, but I’ve been doing Scholars Bowl since the seventh grade at Russellville. My junior year at RHS, we won the state tournament for Class 5A schools.”
Other members of the NWSCC team are Jackson Crook, Landen Etherington, Nick Pounders and Emerson “Emmie” Smith.
Pool said their journey started when the team won first place at Northeast Mississippi Junior College in October 2024. From there, he said they went on to finish first at Jefferson State in Birmingham in December 2024.
In the sectional tournament, held in January at Wallace State Community College, they placed second, and that’s what qualified the team to go to nationals.
The 24 teams in nationals competed in four pools of six. The top teams were placed in a championship pool of eight, and played round robin matches against the other teams in the championship pool.
NWSCC has attended the tournament nine times before, most recently in 2024 when they made the playoffs and finished in 21st place.
While in town for the tournament, the team took some time exploring the Chicago, Illinois, area. They saw the painting “American Gothic,” as well as “Sue,” the biggest T-rex skeleton ever found.
Pool said if anyone is interested in trying this month out for the NWSCC Scholars Bowl team they can contact him by email at bpool@nwscc.edu. He said one or two scholarships may be available.
