The 2023 Titan spell bowl team made school history, being the first spell bowl team to make it to State. The team earned 61 points out of 90, which was a great accomplishment according to sophomore Allison Spindler. The Titans were the last team to qualify for State in Class 2, edging out Lowell High School in northwest Indiana by one point.
The team’s day started bright and early, leaving Gibson Southern High School at four in the morning. Once they arrived at the Purdue University campus, they explored a little bit before the competition started. According to junior Alyssa Baehl, the words were a lot harder than the area meets, but the spellers expected that. After the competition, which lasted about two hours, the team had its picture taken with the state finalist plaque and then headed back to Gibson County.
Marvin Susott has been the spell bowl coach the past three years, recruiting and building the team to where it is now.
“The biggest help on the team was Susott; he was always just happy to be there and to help out,” Baehl said. “He never cared about our scores and told the team regardless of how we did, if we did our best, the place we got does not matter.”
Finding practice time where everyone could meet without conflicts was a difficult task. They decided the best way to make practice time work for everyone was to schedule it before school every Friday morning at 7:30 a.m.
“Our biggest challenge, I think, is carving out time to get together and practice because we have so many students involved in so many different things,” Susott said. “So, I think the students’ time is probably the most important thing in trying to structure this.”
At their Friday practices, the team practiced spelling the words they received at the beginning of the school year.
“At the very beginning of the season, you get this huge packet,” Spindler said. “It has 2,400 words on it, and those are all they are allowed to pick. So, every Friday morning we do two tests, like two practice rounds. We did not cover nearly all the words, but we covered a lot of them.”
The words that the students did not practice together were expected to be studied in their own time. The words that were picked at state also had to be words from the packet.
At the state level, all schools compete against one other, regardless of class. Penn High School from Mishawaka was named Indiana Spell Bowl Grand Champion. Terre Haute South Vigo High School in Terre Haute was the state runner up. Taking third place honors was Roncalli High School from Indianapolis. The rest of the schools were classified as state finalists.
“I could not be more proud of our team for going up there and competing like that, and at that level,” Susott said. “Obviously, there were teams that did exceptionally well, but I was really proud of our kids’ effort and just getting that experience under our belts so that hopefully we will be going back again and getting better at it.”
There were two students, seniors Eva Spindler and Aaron Meny, who achieved perfect scores in the Class 2 Area Competition, advancing them to the individual state competition. This is a fantastic achievement for them according to Susott. They could not have performed better. Meny and Spindler came in to spell on their own, representing Gibson Southern in the contest.
The students had each other’s backs at this competition and throughout the entire season.
“It’s just this group of 10 students who do not really know each other because they span through all grades, and you are put in this circumstance and you have one common goal: get as many words spelled right as possible,” Spindler said. “So, it is just all your teammates encouraging you constantly.”
