EAST SYRACUSE-MINOA SCHOOLS – East Syracuse Minoa’s varsity MasterMinds squad recently made district history by winning this year’s New York State championship.

Started in 1993, MasterMinds is a scholastic quiz bowl program that has expanded to the different corners of Upstate New York. The questions touch on topics such as literature, music, visual art, political science, geography and history.

“It’s all over the map,” said Matt Kissling, a coach for the ESM team. “If you study it in high school or you’re supposed to read it in high school, it’s probably there.”

The players compete in meets, each containing two to three matches split into halves. Up to four players participate on a team at one given time, and they can be substituted in for each other at the halftimes. The competitors buzz in to answer questions and gain or lose points based on speed and accuracy. For example, they earn credit for a power buzz if they give a correct response before the questioner is able to offer the full clue, thus showing immediate knowledge of what’s being asked. If a player cuts off the quizmaster and provides an incorrect response, their team loses five points and gets locked out for that turn.

Held remotely on June 12, the state championship took on a round-robin format for its first stage, with ESM knocking off past state champs Troy High School, Brockport High School and finally Grand Island Senior High School, sealing ESM’s undefeated postseason.

“We kept on a roll, so it was fun to watch and it was fun to be part of,” said Kissling, despite wishing his team could’ve gone head to head with the opponents in-person to experience that different type of energy.

Kissling, a social studies teacher at ESM Central High School, helped to restart his district’s MasterMinds program his first year teaching there in 2017. At that point, there were enough students interested in putting a team together again after the program laid dormant for several years. Possessing a background coaching academic trivia as a teacher in Virginia, Kissling viewed MasterMinds as a self-confidence-boosting afternoon outlet where students could “just be kids.”

By 2018 ESM was runner-up in the Syracuse region, and this year found the team hitting the books and practicing as a group weekly amid “stout competition” according to Kissling, all on the way to earning its first state title ever and its first regional since restarting six years ago.

Kissling said he and co-coach Ann Sherwood, a special education and U.S. history teacher at ESM, spend the practices tossing out easier warm-up questions and having fun before upping the ante venturing into more obscure categories. Kissling said Sherwood is knowledgeable about a wealth of trivia and someone who pushes the students to succeed while remaining “nurturing” and “funny.”

Since actual games can get “intense,” Kissling said that coaching often involves settling everybody down and keeping the mood light.

Adding that he “caught lightning in a bottle” with this year’s junior varsity and varsity rosters, Kissling singled out “doggedly competitive” newcomer and state championship meet Most Valuable Player Caleb Kroll as well as senior and unanimously elected varsity team captain Ben Scalfaro, who was said to have risen to the level of a respected leader.

“We had a solid one-two punch on our team, and when the two of them were zoning out or not as much on their game or when you were asking a pop culture or science question that was out of their mastery, I had a couple other teammates that would step in,” Kissling said, specifically bringing up Milo Perkins and Amit Iyer as examples.

On being named MVP of this month’s MasterMinds tournament, Kroll said it took plenty of reading and memorization of random subject matter. He said that included buffing up his knowledge of music theory and recognition of Beethoven’s symphonies.

“To be good at the game, you have to know everything about everything basically,” Kroll said. “I’m probably a more well-balanced person now, and I feel like I can pick up a conversation with just about anybody about any topic really at this point.”

A celebration was held on June 20 in the high school auditorium. Former MasterMinds players were there, and Superintendent Donna DeSiato and Principal Grenardo Avellino spoke. The varsity members were then presented with their own championship medals.