The Liberty Bell High School Knowledge Bowl team made an impressive showing against larger schools in a regional meet at Moses Lake last week.
The Liberty Team 1 — captain Lazo Gitchos, Emerson Worrell, Nick Fitzmaurice and Tova Portman-Bown — finished second in the North Central Regional Tournament, featuring 11 schools. Host Moses Lake finished first with 96 points, followed by Liberty Bell with 73 points, and Wenatchee and Cashmere tied for third with 64 points. Moses Lake and Wenatchee are 4A schools, Cashmere is 1A (Liberty Bell is in the 2B classification).
“This year all the large area schools took notice of the school from Winthrop,” Liberty Bell coach Leverett Hubbard said. “Kids from the area large schools where impressed when our small school convincingly out-performed these large schools.”
Liberty Bell Team 2 — Sam Neitlich, Dean Hussey, Zach Griffin and Lindsey Worrell — and Team 3 — Per Dillingham and Alex Eslava — competed in a “B” bracket of 18 teams from the 11 schools, Hubbard said. The Liberty Bell teams placed third and fourth, respectively, Hubbard said. Ephrata placed first.
The regular season ended this week with a match at Omak on Monday (Feb. 11). Only Tonasket, Brewster, Okanogan, Liberty Bell and Omak made the match due to inclement weather. Liberty Bell had its first sweep, taking first, second and third out of the 12 teams from those schools.
Liberty Bell Team 1 included Lazo Gitchos, Emerson Worrell, Nick Fitzmaurice and freshman Per Dillingham. “Per was given a shot to play to prepare him for next year when he will most likely be on Team 1,” Hubbard said. “They won all three rounds easily and ended the night with 68 points.”
Team 2 — Sam Neitlich, Michael Mott, Owen Hevly and Zach Griffin — won all three rounds and ended the evening with 53 pts.
“This was the first match for Owen, who has practiced with the team all season,” Hubbard said. Hevly was a starter on the Liberty Bell boys’ basketball team, whose season was just completed.
Team 3 — Tova Portman-Bown, Lindsey Worrell and Dean Hussey — won all three rounds and totaled 48 pts.
Team 1 (Gitchos, Worrell, Fitzmaurice, Portman-Bown and alternates Mott and Neitlich) will continue to compete in the regional tournament two weeks from now and the state tournaments in March. “They bring a wealth of experience to post-season play,” Hubbard said. “Gitchos, Worrell and Fitzmaurice were starters on last year’s second-place team and Gitchos, Portman-Bown and Mott have been with the knowledge bowl program for four years.”
