Nashua South High Defeats Bow High

(DURHAM, February 20, 2022)  -  Bow High defeated Nashua South High in the third game of the first round of the 40th season of Granite State Challenge.

Playing for Bow High were captain and junior Alessandra Sargent, senior Madeliene Kropp, senior Kate Billow, and senior Adem Aricanli. The team alternates were Rorie Cochrane, Dan Miranda, Thomas Sargent, Emily Vincent, Honor Kula, and Logan Fox. The team is coached by Michele Hlavez. Bow High School enrolls 625 students.

Playing for Nashua South High are Captain and senior Sri Korandla, senior Kiritu Gachuki, senior Keshav Rangan, and sophomore Curtis Newton. The team alternates were senior Hrishi Joshi and sophomore Deetya Nagri. Nashua South High was coached by Lex Duval. Nashua South High enrolls 1,790 students.

Granite State Challenge is played in four rounds.  In the first round of the game, correct answers are worth 10 points and there is no loss of points for an incorrect answer.  Adem Aricanli of Bow High kicked off the game by correctly identifying Mongolia as the country where you would find Genghis Khan Square in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar and put 10 points on the board for Bow. Keshav Rangan picked up the first points for Nashua South by identifying "La Cucaracha" as a Mexican folk song about a cockroach. Madeliene Kropp of Bow answered three questions in a row correctly about Achilles, pumice, and the breed of dog Scooby-Doo is (great Dane),  adding 30 points to Bow's total. Bow went on to win the round by a score of 160-80.

In the second round, correct answers are worth 20 points and there is no loss of points for an incorrect answer.  Neither team could answer questions about Gordian knots or the country where the 14th Dalai Lama lives.  The third question - This animated series features Buttercup, Bubbles, Blossom, Professor Utomium and Mojo Jojo. - was the Unitil Power Question and was worth 40 points. Curtis Newton of Nashua South quickly buzzed in with the correct answer, Power Puff Girls.  The 40 for 40 question -  The diary of this Englishman, kept from 1660 until 1669 provides, a detailed account of some of the major events of the English Restoration, including the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague of London. -  was from season 32. Neither team could identify Samuel Peyps as the diarist. The round ended with Nashua South in the lead by a score of 260-180.

The third round of the game is the Three Strikes and You're Out Round. Each team picks a 10-question category and each team member, starting with the captain, gets one question. 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.

Bow High captain Alessandra Sargent chose the category "Around the World" in which all of the answers were countries that were also homonyms.  They correctly identified four countries and picked up 40 points.

Nashua South captain Sri Korandla picked the category "Book It" - the answers to all of the questions in the category included the word book. The team picked up 40 points and the round ended with Nashua South in the lead by a score of 420 to 320.

In the final round, correct answers are worth 20 points, but an incorrect answer will cost a team 20 points and leads can be quickly lost or gained. Sri Korandla of Nashua South picked up the first 20 points in the round by naming carbon as the element found in samples taken by the Mars rover Curiosity.  Nashua South controlled the game in the first minutes and extended their lead to 420-220 and never let go, winning the round and the game by a score of 580-240.

Nashua South High now moves on to the quarterfinals where they will meet the winner of game four between Fall Mountain Regional High and Littleton High which airs on Saturday, February 26, 2022, at 6 pm on NHPBS. The quarterfinal game airs on Saturday, April 2, 2022, at 6 pm on NHPBS.

Granite State Challenge features New Hampshire's top high school academic quiz teams as they demonstrate remarkable teamwork, quick thinking, and smarts to beat the clock and buzz in first on this iconic New Hampshire game show. The game emphasizes quick recall of math, science, social studies, language arts, and fine arts facts - along with questions about current events, entertainment, sports, and New Hampshire.

You can follow your favorite team, test your own knowledge with GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE online quizzes, and more at the GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE web page or try your hands at daily brainteasers on the GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE Facebook page.

GRANITE STATE CHALLENGE is funded by lead sponsor Unitil; with additional funding from NEA New Hampshire, Safety Insurance, New Hampshire Lottery, D.F. Richard, Cognia, and HRCU.

Pressroom Contact

Carla Gordon Russell
Director of Communications
crussell@nhpbs.org
(603) 868-4339