Shown from left are Bedford High School sophomore Tabitha Arp, freshman Sumedh Godavarthy, sophomore Alina Chausovsky and senior Capt. Matthew Ruggiero. Courtesy photo/New Hampshire PBS

DURHAM – The Bedford High School Bulldogs recently advanced to the quarterfinals of the Granite State Challenge, defeating the Hopkinton High School Hawks, 360-290.

Playing for Bedford were team captain and freshman Matthew Ruggiero along with sophomores Tabitha Arp, Alina Chausovsky and freshman Sumedh Godavarthy. Team alternates were sophomore Samantha Arp and freshman Tristan Albano. Destination Imagination Coordinator Kelly Chausovsky and parent volunteer Sherry Arp coached the team. Bedford was the youngest team competing this year.

Playing for Hopkinton were team captain and senior Flo Dapice, sophomore Lucy Beardmore, junior Tad Stokes and senior Michael Pantano. The team alternate was junior Rebecca LeWine. Social studies teacher Liam Callahan coached the team.

Round one was neck-and-neck. Ruggiero started hot for Bedford and answered multiple history questions correctly, while Hopkinton’s Beardmore and Stokes answered pop culture and science questions to keep it close.

Bedford responded as Godavarthy got another history question right and Ruggiero took a few pop-culture questions with quick buzz-ins. Hopkinton’s Beardmore and Stokes stayed strong with science-related questions to fight back to a nearly even score and at the end of the round, Bedford held a slight lead at 100-90.

The Bulldogs played a nearly perfect second round and answered nine of 10 questions correctly taking them to a 190-90 lead with Ruggiero answering four questions correctly and Chausovsky answering three questions correctly.

Godavarthy got his first two but erred on the third, but it was the penultimate question of the round and Bedford had already secured eighty points. Arp used all three passes on her questions, which set the team up for success.

“I think that we have a really strong group of kids and they know each other’s strengths really well and the strategy for that round worked out,” said Chausovsky.

On the other hand, Hopkinton struggled early, answering two right and two wrong in the first go-around. The team did not use any of its three passes and Dapice was unable to answer the fifth question. Hopkinton managed 20 points in this round, giving Bedford a lead of 190-110 going into the third round.

In the third round, Hopkinton had the first choice of a category and the opportunity to make up some ground. The Hawks chose “Put a Lid on it” where each answer was related to hats.

Hopkinton convened and successfully answered eight of 10 questions correctly with answers such as “Indiana Jones,” “Mad-Hatter,” “Tin Foil Hat” and “Charlie Chaplin.”

“I think we got lucky with the category and the hat thing played to our advantage and that helped us a lot,” said Beardmore.

The Bulldogs had a tough second-choice category, electing “Fiddle Me This,” a category in which every question was fiddle or violin-related. Ruggiero and his team had a surprisingly good performance in this tough category to get five of 10 correct answers.

“I think we know what we have to improve just based on this. Of course, our coaches were saying that we don’t really have weaknesses, but I think we can use this time to improve,” said Godavarthy.

At the end of the round Bedford held a lead of 240-190.

The final round of the game was close as Hopkinton was just 50 points behind. Ruggiero got a geography question to widen Bedford’s lead, but then Hopkinton’s Pantano and Beardmore got three in a row correct, including a math question, to bring the Hawks to within 10 points.

However, Chausovsky got one back on a question about Mozart from New Hampshire Kid Governor, Jade Adams and then Ruggiero answered three questions in a row to rebuild the lead and slow the Hawks’ comeback. Stokes, Pantano and Beardmore all answered a few more questions, but Hopkinton was unable to close the gap with time running out.

“I think we have a lot of good people coming up, so we’ll have a good strong team next year,” said Stokes. “Definitely working on the three strikes round and then again, just working with the buzzers trying to increase our speed.”

“I think I did better than I thought we would. I’m pretty confident about going into the quarterfinals and hopefully, we can keep it up because we all did amazing,” said Ruggiero.

Bedford will face Profile High School on April 24 at 8:30 p.m. on New Hampshire PBS.