The Goessel Scholars Bowl team captured third place Feb. 9 at the state tournament held at Flinthills High School in Rosalia. The team of Heath Goertzen, David Hesse, Johanna Hoffman, Bjorn Schumann, Mark Schmidt, and Ben Wiens notched four wins and one loss in the preliminary rounds before going 3-2 in finals for third place.

In the championship rounds, Goessel lost to Blue Valley Randolf, 30-20, then beat Udall 50-40, and then endured a controversial loss to Satanta 55-40.

“I am so proud of this team,” said head coach Wes Schmidt-Tieszen. “After losing to Satanta and encountering some procedural discrepancies, their record was 1-2 and instead of losing focus they won their next two matches.”

Goessel went on to defeat Bucklin 20-10 and Lebo 90-30. Their 3-2 record put them in a three-way tie for second place. After three levels of tiebreaker rules, Goessel placed third behind Satanta and Udall.