For seniors Katerina Reitz and Audrey Johnson, the win was years in the making. 

For the rest of the Powell High School team, the school’s first ever Big Horn Basin Knowledge Bowl title was the end of a whirlwind couple of weeks. 

The five senior Panthers — Powell sent a senior team and another mostly of juniors — eked out a one point win over Greybull last week at Riverside High School in Basin. 

“It was really cool to just kind of see our growth from being like a brand new team put together, having a few weeks to practice, to then answering the questions, talking to each other, doing well, and then ending up winning by just one point,” Johnson said. “So seeing the calculations work out at the end, and just seeing it, knowing every question and answer
mattered.”

Three of the Powell seniors were girls — unusual in a competition where most teams are a majority of boys — and three of the students, Natalie Black, Curtis Muecke and Colin Walker, were brand new to the team. 

“I didn’t know we had [a team] until two weeks ago, and I got requested [to join], and I was like, ‘What is this?’ Black said, adding, “I was like, ‘oh, we have a team, great.’ And then we won.”

Reitz, who has been on the team since her sophomore year and has been teammates with Johnson the last two years — both also had older siblings compete — said for the past few years they’ve recruited knowledgeable students to fill out teams just a couple of weeks before the lone competition in December. 

“Usually what happens is we want to get teams with a wide variety of specialties,” Reitz said. “Like, for instance, Natalie's really good at anatomy stuff, because she's going to be a nursing/midwifery major. And I think Curtis is really good at ag stuff, and some history, and Colin's really good at science, and Audrey's really good at government and history and also literature. I'm really good at just randomly guessing.”

Not quite random — she scored a crucial point in one round by answering “Watergate” to a lengthy question regarding President Richard Nixon’s impeachment. 

With the win Powell broke a four year run by Lovell and now gets to start a new column of winners on the traveling trophy for year 44 — only the names of the first 43 winners fit on the first baseplate. 

After finishing fifth last year, Reitz was not expecting to vault to first this year against tough teams, some of whom spent months training. 

“There’s always a really big gap between the first two, or first team and everyone else,” she said. “And so we kind of just went into this being like, ‘we're gonna compete, we're gonna have fun, but we don't expect to win.’ And then we did. Like, how did that happen?”

Coaches Amy Moore and Tracy McArthur credited the knowledge of the students and the leadership of Reitz and Johnson. 

“I've watched Katarina Reitz and Audrey Johnson honing their knowledge bowl acumen over the last several years," Moore said. "This year, they served as the anchors for a cerebrally-savvy squad, including three first-time participants, earning their place at the top. I'm incredibly proud of them."

It’s not just knowledge, but strategy that leads to a win, as Muecke explained. 

“We want to structure the team so that there's overlap, because you can only have four people in a round at a time, so one person has to sit out,” he said. “So you want to make sure that your people aren't just really good at one specific thing.”

McArthur said the team strategized on the way to Basin for the all day event, as for three of the five on the senior team it was their first time. 

She said they also changed it up to send a junior team — with one sophomore — so they will all be more prepared next year, since “they're experienced, and they know what to expect. They're more comfortable when they're buzzing in. They know the process.”

And if they win next year, it’ll be in very familiar spaces, as Powell will host the event for the first time next year. And success breeds success — after their win was announced, McArthur said she had a few students come up to her asking about what it takes to being on the team. She said they may not need to rely quite as much on “voluntold” recruitment next year.