Pencils scribbling, feet tapping, buzzers buzzing, adrenaline rushing – these are just a few of the sights and sounds at a typical It’s Academic meet.

It’s Academic is an academic challenge team led by math teacher Mr. David Fantegrossi, who has sponsored the team for six years. Mr. Fantegrossi, who had been coaching a team while teaching at Blair, inherited the PB team’s leadership from former world languages teacher Dr. Mary-Ellen Antiochos.  This year’s team is comprised of three official members, sophomores Jessika Agyepong, Lahari Saha and Jonathan Isolato, but allows others to attend its practices which are held every Tuesday at LAP and Thursday after school.

The team is part of the Maryland Academic Beltway League, which is comprised of high school teams from around the county that participate in meets about every two weeks.   At the meets, the teams compete with one another for practice and friendly competition.  Meets consist of three rounds, starting with 10-point questions and increasing to 15 points in the next round.

The “Lightning Round,” the final round of the meet, includes an assortment of questions that are worth varying point values.  This is similar to the “Bonus Round,” the very final round of the competition.  One aspect that separates the It’s Academic team from other school teams is that this squad meets regularly throughout the school year, while other teams are purely seasonal.

In one of their toughest matches of the season, this year’s team competed against teams from Good Counsel, Sandy Spring Friends School, and Wheaton at Paint Branch on November 21st. Paint Branch started the meet against Good Counsel, which walked away with a commanding win 460-240.  They next took on Wheaton, which took control and secured a 420-240 win.  They finished the meet with a tough loss to SSFS by a score of 595-165.

The environment of the meet was far from bloodthirsty.  Though it was a competition, the teams interacted calmly and cordially.  Senior Ben Yumkas from Sandy Spring Friends School noted, “We [SSFS] are very happy that you have given us the opportunity to compete, and we look forward to engaging with you guys in competition.”

Good Counsel player Brian Kelley gushed over the new building here at PB.  “We’re pumped to be here! Paint Branch is a beautiful school,” commented the senior.

All of the teams laughed when Montgomery Blair’s team was mentioned during the meet, something PB’s Jonathan Isolato clarified by saying, “Blair doesn’t let anyone else answer questions.”

While PB would love to have done better in the meet, Mr. Fantegrossi noted that the most important thing to the team is not victory, but having fun and enjoying one another’s company. Mr. Fantegrossi says his goals for the team this year are “to see [them] improve and just have fun. We won’t win every game but we will win a few.” He also encourages anyone who is interested in joining, or simply sitting in to see if they are interested, to join the team at LAP on Tuesdays or after school on Thursdays, as the team is always looking to expand.

Remember to tune into It’s Academic on NBC4 each Saturday.  If you missed the PB team’s December 14th appearance againt Montgomery Blair High School and Robert E. Lee High School, look for it online or stop in to a meeting and check it out.