Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Prairie Grove, Farmington Win ACE Matches
COMPETITION: Sponsor Says Program Challenges Students
PRAIRIE GROVE — After a five-year hiatus, Prairie Grove High has rejoined the Academic Competition in Education circuit and won its first match of the 2013 season last week.
Farmington continued its winning ways and also won its first match of the season on Thursday. Farmington has won the state championship tournament for the past two years.
ACE is a regional competition that involves 12 schools in northwest Arkansas. The season is divided into three rounds and each participating school has one match against two other schools during each round. Schools accumulate points over the season and the seven teams with the most points advance to the final rounds at the end of the year.
ACE is different from Quiz Bowl in that students do not have to buzz in first to answer a question and students are given specific books and chapters to study in preparing for the competitions.
A team is given four tries to correctly answer a question. A correct answer on the first try is worth four points and then one point is deducted for subsequent tries. If time runs out, then one of the other teams can buzz in and try to answer the question for one point.
The 2013 season opened at Prairie Grove with Lincoln, Prairie Grove and Elkins competing against each other. Prairie Grove took the lead from the beginning of the match but then Lincoln’s team began to answer its questions and moved ahead of Prairie Grove. Mid-way through the second half, Lincoln missed three consecutive questions and Prairie Grove pulled ahead to maintain the lead.
Prairie Grove won its first match with 49 points. Lincoln had
43 points and Elkins finished with 17 points.
Prairie Grove ACE sponsor Dustin Seaton said the school decided to rejoin the ACE program to give its students another opportunity to excel.
“This challenges the students in more enriching ways,” Seaton said. “We have a student population who can really thrive in that environment. This gives them an opportunity to excel.”
Sponsor Donna Mitchell said the students are excited about ACE this year.
“The kids are staying after school and coming before school. They are going off on their own time,” Mitchell said.
Farmington competed in Greenland against Greenland and West Fork. Farmington won with 61 points. West Fork was second with 52 points and Greenland finished with 12 points.
“We had a good match,” said ACE sponsor Clayton Williams. “It is good to get the first match out of the way and see where we need to improve. We had a good score but we left some points out there so now we work hard and get ready for our next match against Elkins and Fayetteville.”