SULLIVAN 4-PEATS TO WIN BERTH

With a record-breaking performance – a first-ever four-peat – Bishop Sullivan Catholic has once again earned a spot at the National Ocean Sciences Bowl later this month.

In February, the Virginia Beach private high school competed against 16 other Virginia high school teams and won the 14th Annual Blue Crab Bowl, a statewide competition. Bishop Sullivan has won four consecutive state crowns.
It’s a difficult feat, said Carol Hopper Brill, marine education specialist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences and co-regional coordinator for the Blue Crab Bowl. At this year’s national competition in Galveston, Texas, Bishop Sullivan’s young scientists will represent Virginia and be one of 25 high schools competing.

“We’ve had two other teams that have held the bowl for an extended period of time,” Brill said.

One of those programs was the Chesapeake Bay Governor’s School for Marine and Environmental Science in Warsaw, Va., which won the state competition three years in a row. The other was the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Mathematics in Alexandria, which won in two consecutive years.

Brill said competing against public school magnet programs such as these, which feature curriculums specializing in the sciences, makes Bishop Sullivan’s consecutive wins even more significant.

“We’ve won it five times in the past 14 years,” said Bill Dunn, Bishop Sullivan’s science team coach since 2005. He coaches with Dr. Carol Stapanowich – the school has two teams – in a rigorous training schedule that begins shortly after the start of the school year.

Dunn said prepping his 15-member team for the competitions that test students on their knowledge of oceanography, geology, biology, maritime history and policy requires a serious time commitment from the team, especially leading up to the state and national bowls.

“The game is a head-to-head buzzer round competing with another team,” Dunn said. “It’s 90 percent science.”
Judges also read bonus questions to the teams that require math skills as well, asking students to calculate the speeds of tsunamis or the rate of collapse of a marine species.

“Our kids practice a lot,” Dunn said. “We have a buzzer system just like in the real competition.”

Dunn also has questions prepared like those used during the team challenge segment and uses practice questions that were used in previous bowl competitions. As Virginia’s Blue Crab Bowl nears in February, Dunn said, his team gets even more focused.

“They pretty much drive themselves after they come back from Christmas. They’re very competitive.”
Mary Chang, a senior and captain of the five-member winning team that will compete in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, is making her third trip to the event.
“It’s still a little bit nerve-wracking,” Chang said. “You’re in a new place, and the scenery is different. The competition is much more fierce than in regional. You never know who’s going to be there and how good they’re going to be.”

Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102,
rita.frankenberry@pilotonline.com