# @chapelboronews on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DJmLKeRNR-5
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/30493222-chapelboronews-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/429c5e5638.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-05-13T14:05:56.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Chapelboro.com (@chapelboronews) — https://gondola.cc/chapelboronews

## Caption

A Chapel Hill team took home the national title at the Middle School Quiz Bowl Championship Tournament last weekend.

Smith Middle School of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools joined 158 of the top teams in Rosemont, Illinois for the competition and ultimately made history by finishing the tournament with an undefeated record en route to the title.

Team A — consisting of seventh-grader Om Dessai, and eighth graders James Li, Alex Wright, and Ahadi Yara — qualified for playoffs after an eight-game winning streak in the preliminary round. The group did not drop a match out of their 15 opponents, having to come from behind to win both the semifinal and final games. Yara was also honored as an All-Star for correctly answering 55 tossup questions and earning extra points in the preliminary rounds.

Bratton Holmes coached the students, as well as Smith Middle’s other team that finished 33rd in the competition. In an interview with 97.9 The Hill, the Latin teacher recounted the record-breaking run and shared details on how each member of the A team developed to sharpen their strengths and work together to be a cohesive unit.

“I’ve been doing this for a while, and I’ve gotten to the point when I can recognize that a team is really strong,” Holmes said, having been involved with the quiz bowl program for more than a decade. “I did sense that this group had a chance to do a lot of damage at that tournament, and they ended up exceeding my expectations.”

Full story on Chapelboro.com.
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#smithmiddle #quizbowl #NAQT

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## Credits

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## Tags

smithmiddle, naqt, quizbowl

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