The Academic Games National Tournament is fast approaching for the Bobcat gamers!

The Academic Games team has 13 members including five seniors, two juniors, four sophomores, and two freshmen.

The Academic Games League of America (AGLOA) currently split the high school grades into the Junior and Senior divisions meaning that the ninth and tenth graders will not compete against any juniors or seniors.

“Academic games is a fun way to better your world views and become more well rounded in society,” stated sophomore Julian Noll.

February 14 the gamers celebrated Valentine’s Day by traveling to Community College of Beaver County for the LinguiSHTIK (Ling) tournament.

Ling is a word game played with 23 small wooden cubes and resembles a mixture of Scrabble and Boggle.

The goal of Ling is to allow the “thinking kids” to improve their grammar, vocabulary, and spelling skills.

A first-place finish in Ling is worth six points and there are three rounds.

A player has to earn at least 16 points to qualify for the National Tournament, and as per usual the better a player scores the better team they will be on at Nationals.

Sophomore Ava Sutter and freshman Cora Rodgers qualified in Ling for the national tournament, while the entire senior division qualified as well.

February 23 the Games team traveled to Geneva College for the annual Presidents Tournament.

Presidents is a trivia competition about all 46 presidents.

The gamers are read three facts, worth six, four, and two points, about a certain president and must guess the correct answer after the two-point clue is read.

The National qualifiers are decided on the scores of the county for the year. The top 15% of scorers will compete at Nationals.

Sophomores Hailey Ziegler, Noll, and Sutter as well as Rodgers all qualified for Presidents in the junior division.

For the senior division junior Gracie Turyan and senior Audrey Maize qualified in Presidents.

Turyan stated, “My favorite game is Theme because it changes every year which keeps it interesting. I’m excited for nationals in Orlando this year—and to go to Universal for a day!”

The 56th AGLOA national tournament will be held in Orlando, Florida April 21–25. Mrs. Kelly McNeil-Korba sponsors the Beaver Area AGLOA team.