Northport Wins County on Academic Game Show

A team of Northport High School students beat out 31 other schools recently to become Suffolk County champs in MSG Varsity's academic game show "The Challenge."

With the win, Northport High School received $2,500 and qualified for the Tri-State Championships. Their streak ended there when they were defeated by Mountain Lakes High School from New Jersey.

The Northport High School team was represented by: Grant Schmidt, Josh Gaines (Captain), Caitlin Dwyer, Brian Shields and (Alternates) Josh William and Nick Delgaudio. The academic advisor is Wayne Jensen.  

Back for his fourth season as host of “The Challenge” was Jared Cotter, a popular semi-finalist from American Idol.  Cotter served as moderator, testing competing teams on their knowledge of history, arts and literature, current events, math, and science in front of a live studio audience. 

“The Challenge” includes 192 high schools from the across the tri-state area — Long Island (with Nassau and Suffolk as two distinct regions), the Bronx, Brooklyn, Westchester/Lower Hudson Valley, New Jersey and Connecticut. Long Island was represented by 32 high schools from Nassau County and 32 high schools from Suffolk County. A new match-up can been seen every Sunday through Friday at 6:30 a.m., on MSG Varsity, Optimum TV Channel 14.  

Participating schools advanced through a series of elimination rounds, with one school in each region being crowned regional champion and winning $2,500 for their school. The regional champions then went on to “The Challenge” Championship where they squared off in a Tri-State Showdown.

The school awarded the title of Tri-State Champion received $10,000 in prize money and each student participating in the final “Challenge” Championship game received $500.