Not many teams get a chance to go on TV to compete, but the Academic Team is one of the few that does. On Dec. 12, the Academic Team went to the WJZ-TV studios to tape “It’s Academic.”

The JC Academic Team, also known as the Neutrinos, competed against and beat Franklin High School and New Town High School. JC beat Franklin High, which came in second place, by 115 points.

“The team did fantastic on Saturday, I was very proud of them,” coach Robert Schick said.

The team that competed consisted of sophomore Drew Forthman, senior Liam Dunn, and senior team captain Eric Wright.  “One of our captains, Madison Reed, got really sick the day before and she couldn’t make it. So there goes one of our strongest players, one of our captains,” Schick said.

“It’s Academic” is a quiz show where high school teams compete against each other by trying to answer questions from various categories. “There [are] different types of questions on It’s Academic, like you could see three word choices and match it to the proper definition,” Forthman said.

The show is tournament-style, where losing teams are eliminated and only the winners advance to the next round. At each individual competition, three teams compete, and two lose, according to Schick.

“[The league] starts out with 81 teams, every time we play, you have 2 teams lose, and so it goes down from 81 teams all the way to 27, then it goes down from 27 to 9 teams, so if we win the next one, we’ll be one [of the] nine teams,” Schick said.

The team will continue on to the Baltimore playoffs, which will take place on April 9.

The team members feel confident about their team and their season. “I think we’ve been doing pretty awesome,” Wright said. The team will keep practicing and working until their next tournament. Their match against Franklin High and New Town High will air Saturday, Feb. 20, at 10 a.m. on WJZ13.

Grace Mottley is a News Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.