Trinity High Pulls Off a Stunning Victory Over Plymouth Regional High on Granite State Challenge

Bring It On!

Durham, NH (April 4, 2025) - The Trinity Pioneers pulled off an exhilarating win with a sudden-death tie-breaking answer in the final round of GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE to beat the Plymouth Bobcats, 270-250.

Playing for Plymouth Regional High was 12th grader and team captain Reagan Sutherland, 12th graders Norm Sackett and Max Shamansky, and 10th grader Abe Hankens. The school’s alternate was 12th grader Mason Glew.   The team was coached by drafting teacher Jay Fogarty and world languages teacher Troy Harris.

Plymouth Regional High School enrolls 658 students and serves the towns of Plymouth, Ashland, Holderness, Campton, Rumney, Wentworth, Ellsworth, Waterville Valley and Thornton.

Playing for Trinity High was captain and 12th grader Desmond Lee along with 12th grader Tyler Welch and 11th graders Long Nguyen and Teagan Hilliard. The team alternate was 12th grader Madeleine Souza.

The team was coached by social studies teacher Andrew Lavoie and math teacher Louis Sievers. Trinity High enrolls around 300 students and serves the towns of Manchester, Bedford, Goffstown and Hooksett.

ROUND ONE
Trinity buzzed in first in the round correctly identifying Qatar as the first middle eastern country to host the FIFA World Cup. Plymouth came right back on the second question about St. Augustine, Florida and the race was on.

Max answered the Unitil Power Question correctly naming Peter Parker as the comic book character who learned that with great power came great responsibility, picking up 20 points for Plymouth. The team also picked up 10 points on a New Hampshire-focused video question about the Fisher Cats asked by 2004 Miss New Hampshire, Emily Spencer.

Trinity scored points on questions about Crimea, the Trojan War, and Harpers Ferry, which lost the apostrophe in its name in 1891 due to a decision by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

The round ended with Trinity in the lead by a score of 90-80.

ROUND TWO – THREE STRIKES AND YOU’RE OUT
In the Three Strikes and You're Out Round, each team gets a 10-question category and each team member gets one question starting with the captain. The team continues to answer questions until they miss three questions. Each team also has three passes in each round. If a team answers all 10 questions correctly, they pick up an additional 10 points. 

Plymouth started the round well as Reagan, Norm and Max answered the first three questions correctly, but the team was stumped by the next three questions about the land of Honah Lee, Batman and Beetlejuice and picked up only 30 points in the round. 

Trinity widened its lead, picking up 40 points in the round on questions about Bullwinkle the Moose, Teddy Roosevelt, the children’s book Goodnight Moon and a poem by Dylan Thomas. The round ended with Trinity in the lead by a score of 130-110.

ROUND THREE – 60-SECOND ROUND
In the 60-Second Round alternates join their teams. Each team picks a ten-question category and has 60 seconds to answer the questions. If they answer all ten correctly, teams get a 10-point bonus. Team members can confer in the round, but the captain answers.

The trailing Plymouth Bobcats chose the category, “Three in a Row.” In this category, each answer was a word with three consecutive vowels. Plymouth picked up 60 points in the round, picking up points for words like anxious, curious and queue.

“On our three strikes category and then also with our 60-seconds, you can’t predict what the category is going to be and sometimes it's a lot of pressure,” said Plymouth’s captain, Reagan Sutherland.

The Pioneers chose “Penny for Your Thoughts,” a category in which each answer included the word “penny.” They also picked up 60 points in the round, missing only on questions about Penny Lane, penny dreadfuls, Penny Marshall and penny whistles.

The round ended with Trinity holding on to a 20-point lead of 190-170.

FINAL ROUND – TOSS-UP
In the final round of the game, each correct answer is worth 20 points, but teams lose 20 points with an incorrect answer and a lead can be easily lost or gained in the round.

The final round of the first quarterfinal did not disappoint. The two talented teams duked it out until the end, leading to an exciting and nerve-racking finish.

Plymouth came out of the gate quickly, answering the first three questions correctly and picking up 60 points, putting them in the lead by a score of 230-190.  Trinity picked up 40 points and tied the score at 230-230 on questions about what you might call a covering for a healing cut or what you might call individuals who break a strike line (scab) and a question about Weird Al Yankovic.

With the score tied, both teams were much more cautious in buzzing in. With under two minutes left in the game Norm from Plymouth buzzed in on a spelling question and correctly spelled broccoli giving Plymouth a 20-point. Both teams did not buzz in on the next two questions about the conga and Scott Joplin. As time was running out, Trinity’s Desmond knew that the acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals was “M.A.S.H.”  and tied the game.

This led to the first sudden death tiebreaker of the season. In a tiebreaker, teams do not lose points for an incorrect answer, so only a correct answer can win the game.

Trinity’s Desmond was visibly excited to buzz in and confidently identified Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham as characters from the Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice. The game ended with Trinity defeating Plymouth by a score of 270-250.

“Both teams played incredibly well. I think we played a perfect match as far as things you can control because you can't control what you know. No negative answers in a tight match. They weren’t jumping the gun, they didn't give it away,” said coach Fogarty of Plymouth.

“In the moment I felt, it sounds cliche but, I definitely felt that time almost slowed for a second. And I was so focused on getting it perfectly right, and now I feel like I need to lie down.  it was probably the most intense thing I've ever had to do,” said Trinity captain Desmond.

The Trinity Pioneers now move on to the Semifinals where they will meet the winner of the Portsmouth High and Tilton School Quarterfinal game airing Thursday, May 1 at 8:30 pm on NHPBS.

Tilton High takes on Portsmouth Regional High in the second Quarterfinal Game of GRANITE STATE  CHALLENGE on Thursday, April 10,  2025, at 8:30 p.m. on NHPBS. You can also stream it on the PBS App, the NHPBS YouTube channel, or online at nhpbs.org/gsc.

Test your knowledge with GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE online quizzes, and more at the GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE web page, or try your hands at daily brain teasers on the GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE Facebook page.

GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE is funded by lead sponsor Unitil with additional funding from Bangor Savings Bank, Safety Insurance, NEA New Hampshire and Aroma Joe’s.

About Host Jon Cannon: GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE is hosted by Bow High School teacher Jon Cannon.  Cannon has a long history with GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE. You might say he grew up with the game.  He was a member of the Belmont High team when he was in high school, was a member of the NHPBS GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE crew when he was in college at UNH and was the coach of the Bedford High GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE team.

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• plymouth high v. trinity high
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