Sixteen teams of mostly first-years and sophomores participated in the annual Macalester College Bowl tournament held Sunday in the Campus Center.

College Bowl is a national trivia competition in which two teams compete, earning points by correctly answering trivia questions. Macalester’s tournament consisted of 15 single elimination games with teams advancing to the championship through two brackets.

Each team has four players in the game at a time, with some teams using a fifth as an alternate. At the start of each round the moderator asks a toss-up question which can be answered by either team. If the first player to buzz in answers the toss-up question correctly, then his or her team is awarded ten points and is given the opportunity to answer a series of bonus questions worth 20 or 30 points.

Questions cover a wide variety of topics, such as history, sports, science, current events, spelling and geography. Topics at this weekend’s games included Ronald Reagan, Don King, the French term for e-mail (courriel), the recent California governor’s race and the anthem of the European Union.

The championship match was between the teams The Flying Buttresses and The Dingo Ate My Baby. The Flying Buttresses won easily, with the final score coming to 455-25. The winning team was composed entirely of first-years: Maggie Hughes, Ben Livingston, Corey Monteith, Samantha Ross and Josh Whitney-Wise. “I was completely surprised,” Monteith said. “We weren’t expecting to win at all.”

Livingston said that the team formed out of a group of friends. “We were at lunch, and I was just like, ‘Who wants to join a College Bowl team with me?’” he said.

They did not hold any practices before the tournament, but several of the players said that they had experience with trivia games such as Quiz Bowl in high school.

The other participating teams names were: Easy As p, Fact Soup, Hot Hot Cakes, Kamchatka, Lactic Acid Factory, Much Ado About Gary, S.S. More Powerful Than Superman, Scream Orange, Team “Aha,” Team Ocelot, Team Tashkent, The Flying Furquims, The Krisaras and The “S” Words.

The Flying Buttresses received Macalester t-shirts from the Highlander in addition to the chance of competing at the regional College Bowl tournament Feb. 19 and 20. The regional tournament will be held at the University of Minnesota and will include teams from throughout Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Western Ontario and Manitoba. The regional winner will advance to the national championship tournament that will be held in April at Auburn University in Alabama.

Members of the second place team, The Dingo Ate My Baby, won beer mugs from the Highlander.