A big part of that success was due to senior captain Rachel Fanous, who received a trophy for answering the most questions in the tournament — 512 total.

“We wouldn’t have gone to nationals without her. There’s no doubt about it at all,” Coach Joel VanLanen said. “She’s put in a lot more time than the other players have.”

“I generally didn’t think we would make it that far in the tournament,” Fanous said. “I thought we would place just outside the top 10. Playing the 11th and fifth seeds — those were really hard matches — I wasn’t really expecting to win them.”

For her, the most enjoyable match was against Hastings High School.

WEST IRON COUNTY High School senior Rachel Fanous hold a trophy she won at the National Academic Quiz Tournament Championship last weekend for answering the most questions. (Marguerite Lanthier/Daily News photo)

“They were the number one team at that tournament, and even though we lost, I would say trying to figure out how to beat them or how to play them was the best part,” she said.

“It’s hard to judge what the competition was like from last year, but from year to year it’s pretty close, especially when you get into the upper 10 teams, out of 88 teams. You have some pretty sharp students who really know their topics,” VanLanen said.

West Iron’s team — which includes juniors Abigail Farley, Rocky Farley and Jayden McWethy — had a very successful year in the Upper Peninsula as well. They won the two tournaments at Michigan Technological University, placed second at Gogebic College and also placed first at a tournament at Northern Michigan University to qualify for the national tournament. Fanous was the top individual for those tournaments.

For the first time, the team won WNMU-TV’s “High School Bowl” championship, earning $2,500 for the team. Fanous received the Dave Goldsmith Scholarship of $1,500 as the top senior.

“She was player of the year and that was well deserved, I thought,” VanLanen said.

For the national tournament, any of the four players on each team can answer at any time while the question is being read but if you get it wrong you lose five points and get locked out of the bonus round, she explained.

“So that’s basically missing out on 35 points,” she said.

Fanous thinks the team was more prepared this year. “Last year going to nationals was just a side effect and I think this year at the start of the year we were trying to go to nationals and perform well,” she said.

The team also visited the Art Institute of Chicago, which houses such famous works of art as the “American Gothic” painting by Grant Wood.

“It’s one of the biggest museums in the United States, one of the most influential museums. I think it was really interesting to see all those famous works of art,” she said.

Fanous makes an effort to be a positive influence the team. “I’m constantly trying to get them to study and explore topics that they’re interested in. I’ve been trying to organize more team hangouts so that we spend time together outside of quiz bowl. I think that helps our rapport while we’re actually doing quiz bowl,” she said.

Going to tournaments and seeing everyone from the surrounding teams is what Fanous will miss the most. “I been doing this for three years, so you really get to know people that you’re playing. You can anticipate where they are going to get questions and what questions they’ll get. Playing those teams is just the favorite part of my year,” she said.

She considers literature to be her strongest category. “It was the thing that needed to be filled when I first joined the team,” Fanous explained.

VanLanen said she was also strong in math. “She was our best math student right at the beginning, when she had just come on,” he said.

Next year she thinks the team should focus on history and geography, because they should have a base to build off those categories.

Quiz bowl has had a positive effect on her and she thinks it will help her in college. “It gives you some kind of concrete goal so you see that you’re making progress, and you feel that progress,” Fanous said. “It makes you work harder. It gives you a reason to learn new things and it gives you a reward for learning new things.”

Fanous may continue her quiz bowl career next year at the University of Michigan. She plans to study biochemistry toward eventually going to medical school.