By S. Siapha Mulbah
The Liberia Institute for Knowledge and Excellence (LIKE) has officially kicked off the 2024 Atlantic Quizzing Super Cup playoff for the National Quizzing Championship with two matches in matchday one fixtures.
According to Phil Tarpeh Dixon, Liberia’s Quizmaster General, the playoff is intended to promote two teams out of four for the upcoming edition of the International Quizzing Association tournament that is expected to be hosted in Liberia.
Dixon boasted that Liberia, as a member of the International Quizzing body, will feature a high school from the United States of America as a guest participant in its upcoming competition for the first time, saying that the name of the school will be submitted by the International Quizzing Association.
On Thursday, January 25, 2024, the academic excellence institution also conducted the draw for the competition to inform the schools that secured their participation from the past edition, as the others’ fate will be decided through the play.
Four schools, namely; Patmelia Academy, Esther Yalartai Academy, Lombardia High School, and the Samwa International School, have all been paired in a single group at the playoff to participate in a round ribbon format for six matches, and the top two will going to the national tournament.
In the opening rounds of the event on yesterday, Patmelia Academy went against Esther Yalartai Academy in game one, with both teams engaging the kickoff with high speed, signifying that the competition has kept them in the corners of earlier preparation.
However, after reading a total of 30 questions from five different categories, Esther Yalartai emerged as the first team to grab a win with a score line of 100-75, a margin of 25 points.
Categories that are recognized and considered by LIKE in nearly all of its events are Mathematics, General Science, History, Language Arts, and Lifestyle.
In the second game, Lombardia lost to Samwa International with a margin of 20 points, after both schools recorded 70 and 90 points respectively. The quizmaster also noted that the remaining four matches to complete the playoff will be played at a date yet to be announced.
At the conclusion of the draw, Jimmy Jolocon High school, The Christian Missionary Fellowship Bilingual School, a Unifying Team from the eastern region of Liberia, and a combined team from Zwedru Multilateral and T. Wilson AGM Schools from Grand Gedeh County, were placed in group A.
In group B, the expected team from the United States, College of West Africa, Noah’s Ark, and another combined team from the northern region, will go against each other.
Group C comprises of Joseph Jenkins Roberts United Methodist High School, Drims School System of Grand Bassa County, Fountain of Life, and the winner of the ongoing playoff competition.
The rest of the four schools to complete a total of 16 teams in the academic program, making up group D, are Saint Peter Claver High of Grand Bassa County, Kakata Community College of Margibi County, another combined team from the western region, and the runner-up of the playoff.
According to Tarpeh Dixon, the cases of combining and unifying teams from mainly rural parts of the country is to ensure that the competition will be followed across the world to give strong students from schools that do not have total independent academicians the opportunity of building allies with others in the region or surroundings.
