On January 4th, senior Evan Sparks, junior Mandela Namaste and sophomore Ananya Nrusimha competed in the first round of the televised It’s Academic quiz show against Williamsville North and Niagara Falls High School.  This match and the 8 other matches of the preliminary round will be aired on Saturdays at 10:00 AM in the morning on Channel 2 sometime in late February and early March.  Sparks, Namaste, Nrusimha, and East alumni Cindy Xue and Peter Yun were members of the East team that was the champion of last year’s It’s Academic competition.   Hopefully, East’s team will be able to take the trophy home again this year; in order to do so, they will have to beat 27 other schools.  Sparks, Namaste, and Nrusimha are all members of East’s Masterminds team, an interscholastic college bowl-style competition.  East is at the lead of their Masterminds league, which consists of the three Williamsville schools, Cardinal O’Hara, Eden, and Niagara Catholic.  When this article was sent to print, Mandela Namaste has earned the most points in the league this year, with Alex Hedges of South in second and Ananya Nrusimha in third.  Results for the most recent Masterminds match on January 8th at Cardinal O’Hara were not available when this article went to print.  East would have played Cardinal O’Hara, Niagara Catholic and Eden.
Unfortunately, the results of the preliminary match cannot be revealed until after the airdate.  Please support your East Masterminds team by watching It’s Academic and coming to the next Masterminds meet at Williamsville South on Wednesday, March 12th!