Metro-East Lutheran High School scholar bowl team continues to dominate
EDWARDSVILLE – Metro-East Lutheran High School’s scholar bowl team made school history last year by winning the IHSA Class 1A state championship, but after three of the championship team’s five starters graduated, Coach Shanna Covarrubias wasn’t sure what to expect for the 2024-2025 season.
Turns out, the MELHS team has picked back up right where they left off. Led by outstanding performances from sophomore Dean Hemmer and junior Peter Curtis, the Knights Scholar Bowl team is heading into regional play with a record of 71 wins and two losses.
“That number feels unreal,” Covarrubias said. “I really did not know what to expect coming into this year, but clearly the team has been pushing themselves hard to prepare during the off-season and continues to push themselves.”
The Knights already have accumulated a list of tournament titles this season. They recently won the sectional for the Illinois Masonic Academic Bowl and will be competing in the Masonic state tournament later in March. MELHS won the Masonic State championship last year in the 1A division. Because of continued enrollment growth at the school, the team has been bumped up to the 2A division and so will be facing competition from larger schools, which Covarrubias says they are ready to do.
“This season has been really impressive because they’ve faced big schools, small schools, teams from all over the state,” she said. “They just keep coming out on top because they work so hard.”
On Saturday (March 1) MELHS won the state small-school NAQT championship at an invitation-only tournament run by the National Academic Quiz Tournaments LLC for top-ranking teams. The team also has brought home championships this season from the South Central Scholastic League tournament and the Piasa Bird Invitational, and in December, the team won the Rushville-Industry Invitational Tournament held in northern Illinois.
"That was exciting for us because we were playing teams we don’t usually see,” Covarrubias said.
MELHS will host the Class 1A regional on March 10. The Knights have won the regional title the past three years. Sectional play will follow on Saturday, March 15, with MELHS as the top-seeded team.
Hemmer and Curtis already have been selected for the all-sectional team, along with Dalton Beers, a senior at MELHS. Hemmer and Curtis also are in consideration for this year’s all-state team.
The MELHS varsity team also includes Erik Neath, Andrew Maske, Logan Abbott and Evan Klaustermeier, who are all seniors, and Grant Moss, a sophomore.
For more information about Metro-East Lutheran High School, which has been providing academic excellence in a Christ-centered environment for more than 40 years, go to www.melhs.org.
