The Solanco High School Quiz Bowl team is flying high.

Amitai Kauffman will soar higher than ever before when the savvy squad travels to Atlanta for the High School National Championship Tournament.

It will be the senior's first trip on an airplane. "I'll be probably even nervous, but I'll be fine," he said.

The competition, organized by the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT), will take place at the Marriott Marquis Friday, May 22, through Sunday, May 24. Approximately 300 schools from across the country will be represented.

Teams will play 10 matches on May 23. Depending on its record, Solanco will participate in either the playoffs or the consolation tournament on May 24.

"I'm going into it with no expectations, because the level of teams is really difficult, and the questions get harder too," coach Caley Roark said. "It's a whole other level of difficulty, so I just want them to experience what it is like at that level and do their best. If we make it to the playoff rounds, that would be great. If not, we just enjoy our time and appreciate how good some of these teams are."

In addition to Amitai, the group is composed of seniors John Winters and Lucy Costigan and juniors Rhiannon Groff, Thomas King, and Brianna Harvey.

Solanco advanced to the national event by virtue of its 8-4 regular season record and top-two finish in its "A" group conference of the Lancaster-Lebanon Quiz Bowl League.

The collection of mindful Mules finished fourth in the league tournament Feb. 9 at Penn Manor High School and will carry a 13-7 mark into the national tournament in just their second year of competition.

"I was pretty surprised," Roark said. "Our team is really good, but so are the other teams in our league. I was really happy and pleasantly surprised that we held our own, considering that we moved up a division and we're playing teams that have been to the national finals before."

Solanco practices twice a week for an hour during the advisory period. "Having seen how good some of the teams were in the Lancaster-Lebanon League, we intentionally practiced a lot more than we did last year," said Roark.

Quiz Bowl's questions include the topics current events, art, music, science, math, and literature, along with computational math, which presents questions that must be solved with pencil and paper.

Amitai ended the league schedule as the top individual scorer. "That's a huge strength for our team," said Roark. "I think the experience really helped as well. Last year we didn't really know what to expect. And there is some strategy to knowing when to buzz, knowing how quickly that you have to buzz in. Last year, a couple times we lost points by buzzing early and getting the question wrong. ... You have to know when it's a time to risk it and when you have to back off a little bit."

Rhiannon agreed. "I think experience definitely helped because it doesn't really seem like it, but there's some strategy that goes into Quiz Bowl besides knowing all the answers," she said.

Rhiannon also helped recruit Thomas to the team. "I was talking about it with Rhiannon Groff during cross-country season and said I wanted to join, but I thought I had to be directly in the gifted and talented program to join it," he said. "She said, 'Oh, no. You just have to ask.' I responded, 'So can you ask for me?' And she did and I joined like that. I've enjoyed it."

John also came aboard this year. "I definitely think I'm strongest in current events and literature, to an extent," he said. "A lot of the current events questions tend to be either American politics or international politics or events that are happening in other countries, and I read the news like The New York Times pretty frequently. I'm able to pick up the tidbits from that." He added that reading helps with his literature knowledge.

He is happy he elected to link up with the team. "It is a great experience," John said. "I like the cooperation, even though you're not meant to confer on toss-up questions, just in bonuses, and having to learn what everybody is good at and trying to balance that. It was very nice to share some of the successes."

The group is looking forward to going to the Peach State. "I really hope to get to spend time with my team, which will obviously be happening, and I think we talked about going to the aquarium, which would be really cool," said Rhiannon.

Brianna echoed those sentiments. "I'm really excited to go to a big city and go to a place we've all never been before," she said. "It'll be a new experience with all these really good teams, and I'm excited to go to the aquarium."

Amitai added, "It means the chance to do something more prestigious, more special at the end of my high school career. I want to take as many opportunities as possible, and this is just another thing, another chance to go somewhere, do something with people."