Chatham Academic Team Advances to Playoffs in National Tournament

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Chatham High School academic team made it past Manheim Township (Pa.) on Saturday to advance to the playoff round of the National Academic Championship at Marymount University.

Manheim jumped out to a 155-35 lead thanks to a big, controversial bonus it received regarding a question about smuggling weapons of mass destruction into Iran and North Korea. Chatham protested, but in order for the protest to matter, it had to make the matchup close enough for it to count. It did just that, scoring 120 unanswered points at the end of the final round to close the gap to 235-205.

Chatham's protest was deemed successful by the judges, who then swung the decision in Chatham's favor, 215-175, after taking away Manheim's 60-point bus and giving Chatham an additional 10 points.

Michael Lovito exploded for 110 points with seven correct answers in the matchup. He had four 20-pointers in the final round.

Both teams advanced to today's playoff round (preliminary matches were Friday and Saturday). The varsity team went 4-2 over the course of six prelims.

The junior varsity team finished 2-4 and did not quite qualify for Sunday's playoff round. It defeated James Island (S.C.), 150-135, when Julie Messing correctly identified "lambda" as the symbol for the wavelength of a photon.