Jupiter High seniors Jacob Roman, Caleb Petranchuk and Hannah Dickinson defeated Christopher Columbus High School by a score of 410 to 330 in the April 1 episode of School Duel.

School Duel is a local television program where teams from local high schools compete in an academic game. The winners earn one year of free Chick-Fil-A.

“I had a blast. I think that I can speak for all of us when I say that we had a great time. Winning free Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches for a year wasn’t a poor incentive, either,” Roman, team captain, said. 

The Warriors took an early lead and held it to victory.

“I wasn’t particularly nervous until I was standing on the little wooden box behind the podium staring at everyone working on the show,” Dickinson said. “It was also a little unnerving being the only female participant, as I had to perform well or I would feel as if I let my entire gender down.”

Although Jupiter came out strong, Columbus caught up about halfway through the competition.

“I felt the best at the beginning when we were crushing them and answering tons of questions. I felt the worst, however, when I lost the Joust question that I knew the answer to,” Dickinson said.

When asked about her favorite moment of the competition, Dickinson described walking onto the stage.

“[My favorite moment was] definitely walking into the room where we filmed and seeing my name on the podium,” Dickinson said. “It was almost unbelievable, I had never competed in anything like it before, so it was really cool seeing my name up there in the lights.”

Petranchuk also loved being on stage.

“I loved the feeling of having everyone’s eyes on us. We worked hard to get there, so it was a lot of fun,” Petranchuk said.

According to Dickinson, Petranchuk is not exaggerating when he said how hard the team worked for the competition.

“I watched A TON of the previous competitions on the School Duel YouTube channel; I would watch them while doing homework, eating, or really doing anything at all,” Dickinson said. “I also used the practice Kahoot that Ms. Miller made for us, I used it about a week before the actual competition.”

Madeline Miller, Jupiter High’s media specialist, reached out to the students to join the team and prepared them for competition. Petranchuk described her role in the team as “imperative.” 

“She supported us and gave us all of the resources to succeed. Without her, I would have never heard about School Duel, and I definitely wouldn’t have been prepared for the competition,” Dickinson said. 

Roman listed some of Miller’s many roles at Jupiter High.

“School Duel Coordinator, Study Material Provider, Cheerleader [and] the most amazing supporter,” Roman said.

To prepare for the competition, the team worked together often, even right before the duel itself.

“We were all brushing up on trivia questions in the car, it was so much fun to just kind of shoot around ideas and answers,” Petranchuk said.

When asked if he could describe how winning felt, Petranchuk answered honestly.

“No I can’t. But I have a LOT of Chick-Fil-A,” Petranchuk said.

The captain took an opposite approach for his answer.

“Relieved, freed, proud, excited, incredibly happy. As for the Chick-Fil-A, delicious and much appreciated,” Roman said. If you are interested in learning more about School Duel and watching Jupiter High’s match, visit SchoolDuel.tv. If you want the chance to duel for your school next year, make sure to contact Madeline Miller.