FOR RELEASE: MAY 10, 2022 – Contact: Jim Mehrling 440-463-2557
Headline: LAKE RIDGE ACADEMY DEFEATS KEYSTONE, ADVANCES TO ACADEMIC CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
Lorain County’s high school quiz show, the Scholastic Games, now in its 32nd year on WEOL radio (AM930 and FM 100.3), broadcast its first semifinal this week. Lake Ridge Academy, the winner of the 2021 championship, has crossed the last hurdle for a chance to compete for a second consecutive top honor. It was not an easy task, as its competitors from Keystone High School in LaGrange were in the lead for a significant portion of the competition, but Lake Ridge rallied in the latter rounds to an impressive 520 to 320 victory. Their opponents in the championship will be either Olmsted Falls High School or Amherst Steele, coincidentally the school Lake Ridge Academy faced in the championship last year. Broadcasts are the next two Mondays, 6 to 7 p.m., with the championship on May 23rd.
Representing Lake Ridge in this week’s program were Alex Masgras, Tanish Makadia, and Finn Pasatta, who won his third “Standout Scholar Award,” which is presented each week by judges to the student determined to have contributed the most to his or her team. The honor includes a $50 award. The Keystone team, fresh from victory in last week’s quarterfinal, consisted of Landon Horner, Tristan Magel , and team captain Noah Weaver, a two-time Standout winner.
The first round of questions is called the “Initial Round” with the answers to all questions beginning with the letter “N,” ranging from nirvana to Navaho. Keystone ended the round with a 60 to 40 lead and continued to lead following the Current Events round, with a score of 100 to 80. A salute to the preceding Mother’s Day weekend, third was a theme round with answers ranging from mother of pearl, to Gertrude, the mother of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was in this round, the first in which buzzers made speed of answering a factor, that Lake Ridge Academy took the lead for the first time.
It was the fourth round, which Lake Ridge entered with a 140 to 130 lead, that the was won. The round includes high-score clues for each answer. A correct answer to a most obscure first clue in a series can yield fifty points, with diminishing point values in up to four additional clues, the last of which is worth ten points. The first set of clues concerned the character Sherlock Holmes and Keystone quickly scored 40 points to recapture the lead. It was only temporary, however, as Lake Ridge dominated the rest of the round: 40 points naming Palestine, 40 more for Carlsbad Caverns, 30 for naming the champion racehorse Secretariat, and 50 points based on knowing the name of the small Austrian town in which Adolph Hitler was born. Masgras and Pasatta scored 80 points apiece in this round!
Entering Round Four, Lake Ridge had a 300 to 170 lead. The final round and its more than nine minutes of tossup and bonus questions offers great scoring potential with a wide variety of academic topics. Keystone faced a 90-point deficit in its quarterfinal a week before and fought its way to victory in the final moments, but this week was a different story. There was a lot of scoring by both teams, but Pasatta of Lake Ridge scored twice as many points as any other member of either team in this round, assuring a strong victory.
Lake Ridge will be heard in the championship, facing the winner of next week’s semifinal between Amherst Steele and Olmsted Falls. Over the years twelve different schools have won the county championship. Of the remaining teams, Olmsted Falls won four consecutive years 2011-2014, and again in 2018, tying with Elyria High School for the most with five wins (in 1992, 93, 94, 97, and 2000). Lake Ridge Academy, won in 2021 and earlier championships in 2006 and 2010, so a win this year would be the school’s fourth. Amherst Steele, last year’s runner-up, won in 1991 and 2015. Of this year’s other finalists Avon won four past championships (2009, 16, 17, 19), and Keystone one (in 2004). Other past champions not among finalists this year are Avon Lake (2001, 05, and 20), Admiral King (1995, 1998, now closed), Oberlin (1996), North Ridgeville (1999, 2002), Midview (2003) and Vermilion in (2007, 08). All of this year’s programs are archived by WEOL on its website (http://weol.northcoastnow.com/2022-lorain-county-scholastic-games/ ). Additional archives are available at https://standoutscholars.com .
The program has enjoyed long-term support from Nordson Corporation and various funds of the Community Foundation, this year including the Steve Boyza Fund, the Patsie C. Campana Sr. Fund, the Schaeffer Family Fund, The Stumphauzer, O’Toole, McLaughlin, McGlamery & Loughman Co. Fund, the “Touch the Future” Fund, the Al Hillegass Fund, the Ford MacArthur Endowment Fund and the Madeleyn Metzger Fund. Additional support is from the Nord Family Foundation and the Community West Foundation. The radio sponsors this year are EcoTree Services and the Elyria Public Library System, which has provided venue space for program sessions for several years.
Area colleges and universities participate by providing $1000 tuition credit awards for allocation by participating high schools. Participating for all or most of the program’s thirty-year history were Lorain County Community College, Oberlin College, Ursuline College, Ashland University, Heidelberg University, John Carroll University, with more recent additional awards from the University of Findlay, Lake Erie College, Tiffin University and Notre Dame College of Ohio.
The program’s host and producer, Jim Mehrling, is a veteran northeast Ohio broadcaster. After seven years as Chief Announcer at WEOL, he was Production Manager for, first, Cleveland’s WERE-AM and later at Cleveland’s WCLV-FM. He was recipient of a 2019 President’s Award from the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters. Again this year, most Scholastic Games programs are followed by a talk feature, “Dialogues in Education,” which presents education success stories with its host, award-winning journalist Bob Tayek. BROADCAST ON AM 930 – WEOL