As School Match Wits, also know as Trivia Club, meets every Friday in room A318 with adviser, Mr. Bernard. Club members compete in weekly trivia competitions. Questions are asked about people, events, and miscellaneous facts that are not well known. In December, the team competed in the annual competition As School Match Wits on Channel WGBY.

The As School Match Wits started around the late 1950’s to early 1960’s. It was quite popular back then. “Everybody knew about [As Schools Match Wits] and we had a huge following,” said club adviser Mr. Bernard. Over the years, membership has gone down and less people are aware that the club exists. Meghan Brassil, a Sophomore, joined the club last year and enjoys being apart of the team. “I continue to go to the meetings and be apart of the club because the way we learn new things is fun. I might not be the best at it, but the atmosphere around you make it so that doesn’t even matter. All that matters is that the people have fun at the meetings,” she said. On December 26, 2015, the club participated in the annual As School Match Wits TV Show against Westfield High School. It aired on Channel 57 on WGBY, formally on Channel 22. The students were extremely nervous, but truly excited to be apart of this experience.

“I went in thinking of it as any other game, I had nothing to lose and tried my best,” said Senior Shannon Brassil. Meghan Brassil also enjoyed the overwhelming, yet exciting experience, “It was intimidating, but then you realize you winning the match would only be an added bonus and the reason why I was there was to just enjoy myself! Throughout the match the experience got better and even though we lost I truly enjoyed the experience and hope to do it next year.”

The team’s main strengths were in questions related to technology and anything to do with the local area. Many questions required knowledge of current events. There were also many math questions much of them involved Pre-calculus. The team’s biggest struggle was hitting the buzzer fast, over not knowing the answers. Although the West Side As Schools Match Wits team lost this year, club members still had a fun time with the close match.

Every year the club also participates in a meeting hosted by the Rotary Club. The Rotary Club is a organization that gives back to the community of West Side. The Rotary Club contains members of different professions like doctors and lawyers. This year, the event will occur around April or May, somewhere in the West Springfield area. The event contains a nice lunch, a short meeting, and spending time playing trivia games which, according to members, the Rotary Club usually wins.

When the Club does not have an upcoming event to attend, they enjoy the atmosphere every Friday to build their knowledge on trivia. Shannon Brassil really likes the club ever since she first joined, “I just happened to wander into a Trivia Club session one afternoon by accident and really enjoyed it. Then came the next week and soon it became every week and I hope others take the time to do the same.” Mr. Bernard explained that he really wants students to get involved, “people discover the club when they’re Juniors or Seniors and then they are on and say ‘wow I wish I knew about this when I was a Freshman’ so they miss out. It’s also tough to get a really good team. Every year we start with mostly new people because the Seniors graduated.” He wants to encourage any students, especially freshmen and sophomores, to stop by on Friday afternoons in room A318 and come check it out.