TV team keeps its wits and moves ahead

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on December 21, 2007

Some players met for the first time on the way to the television studio to tape Episode 6 of "As Schools Match Wits."

But as Amherst Regional High School team member Gavin Nachbar predicted, they really did "pull it together."

In keeping with their agreement with the show's producers, team members aren't revealing results of this season's competition, but if you saw "As Schools Match Wits" Saturday, you know Amherst prevailed over West Springfield, 150-75, in the first round.

It was the first time Nachbar, Zachary Gabor, Sasha Lansky and Mark Santolucito had participated in the venerable high school quiz show, broadcast on WGBY and now in its 47th season.

Forty-eight teams compete in 24 pretaped episodes, with the top eight going on to the semifinal round leading to the championship.

Amherst has done well in the contest, winning in 1964, 1965, 1967, 1973-1974, 1975-1976, 1984-1985, 1989-1990 and 1994-1995.

Last year, the Amherst team made it to the semifinals, but as the members were all seniors, faculty advisor Tracy Foulis recruited new members from her math classes this year.

It is a young team of three sophomores and one junior, Santolucito.

All four plan to return next year, because it was so fun, they said.

Amherst players cut a sharp contrast to their West Springfield counterparts on TV Saturday.

The latter were all dressed in sober grays and blacks, while the Amherst students hadn't appeared to coordinate their outfits ahead of time.

Little did viewers know, the Amherst team had helped out the host, Chris Rohmann, who had shown up wearing Reebok sneakers deemed unsuitable for the occasion and ended up switching footwear with Santolucito.

Things didn't look auspicious for Amherst in the beginning, as West Springfield established an early lead.

It evaporated, though, during the first "lightning" round, when whichever team presses the buzzer first and gets the right answers first quickly amasses points.

Amherst trailed West Springfield going into the round, the theme of which was sports, and came out of it ahead, 95-55, thanks, in large measure, to Nachbar and Gabor's grasp of the subject.

Ornament sales

Fort River kindergartners in Deborah Felix's class have been selling ornaments they made with their sixth-grade "buddies" to benefit children in developing countries.

They're doing it through a program designed by Heifer International that provides farm animals, such as sheep, chickens and rabbits, to families and trains them to raise them and make money producing eggs and wool, for example.

The families are also asked to spread the wealth by passing the animals' offspring to other families.

The kindergartners' handmade pipe-cleaner candy canes and peace symbols from around the world were selling like hotcakes Tuesday.

At 25 cents each, who could argue with the price?

"We're trying to promote giving back' at a young age," Felix said.

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.