After staving off some very serious competition from the Wolmer's Boys School, Ardenne High yesterday made it through to the semi-finals of Television Jamaica's Schools' Challenge Quiz.

Though the final score of 41- 35 would suggest that Wolmer's was not up to par, this was not so. In fact, this was perhaps one of their best games.

In the first section of the match, both teams seemed to be nervous, and so were not playing at their optimum level. At the end of this section, Ardenne was ahead on 10 points, while Wolmer's was on 6.

The second section of the match was the strongest for Wolmer's as they outperformed their opponents in all of the 'individual minutes'. They earned 23 points in this section, while Ardenne earned just 15. At the end of this segment, Ardenne was on 25, while Wolmer's had moved ahead on 30 points, or so everyone thought. After a series of queries from Ardenne's coach, the Rev Glen Archer, Ardenne gained four additional points, while Wolmer's lost one, bringing the score to a tie.

Though both teams were now on a level playing field, Ardenne was the first to get out of the blocks in the third section.

From there, they did not look back and racked up a total of 14 points. Wolmer's Boys, on the other hand, took a while to warm up, and only managed to earn eight points.

Coach of the Wolmer's team, Dorian Beckford, told THE WEEKEND STAR, "The guys played at their optimum. I couldn't ask for anything better than what they did. Hopefully, next year the title will be ours."

The Rev Glen Archer said of the match, "It's a quarter-final, so we expected heavy competition. Wolmer's had some good coaching and they will do well next year. We did some immense work and we have an experienced team. We retained three of our members from last year. We give God thanks for the coaches' work and for the team's work."


The Wolmer's team: Daryl Rowe, Wade Brown, Javoy Sawyers, Tariq Parker.


The Ardenne team: Dujon Dunn, Travis Townsend, Janiel Williams, Anthony Williams.