The RHS Academic Challenge team hopes to continue the program’s success after losing many strong seniors after their 2014 season.

American History teacher Jeff Fry coaches the Varsity team, and Social Studies teacher Ellen Friery coaches the Junior Varsity team. They have been coaching together for 18 years. The teams compete in both the Medina and Summit Leagues, and Fry commented on their hopes for success.

“We always expect to have good teams on both JV and Varsity that are competing for league championships,” Fry said.

The team holds itself to a high standard, as it almost always has very successful seasons. Senior captain Asha Ravichandran commented about the team.

“I think it’s a pretty successful team. We have a strong and talented group of seniors,” Ravichandran said.

The coaches are also very impressed with the team so far this season.

“We lost some really strong seniors from last year, and a lot of people have really stepped up to fill their place,” Fry said.

Last year’s Varsity team finished with a record of 37-3. This year’s team is working to keep itself to the same standards. The Varsity team is 13-2 and the JV team is 14-1. Ravichandran expressed that she feels like they still have a lot of strong talent and room to improve.

The teams practice twice a week and have matches every other Monday. Ravichandran explained their typical practice routine.

“We typically practice questions amongst our own team to prepare for the questions we receive in our matches,” Ravichandran said.

They hope to win one of their leagues or a tournament this season in order to qualify for regionals. Senior captain Victoria Deng spoke of their goals for the season.

Deng explained that their goal would be to make it to regionals and hopefully states.

The coaches try to be understanding and encourage people to do other activities along with Academic Challenge.

Friery explained that they try to be understanding about other people’s time commitments.

Fry believes that Academic Challenge is unique in many ways.

“One thing that makes Academic Challenge unique is that you can do other things at the same time. You can play another sport or other activity and at the same time participate in Academic Challenge.”

Seniors on the team include Natalie Allen, Deng, Matt Fiedler, Bharat Kumar, and Ravichandran.