Dr. Mark McGalla, Lehighton Area Middle School principal, welcomed this year participating schools to the 31st annual Academic Challenge Eighth Competition.

After not hearing applause from the middle school competitors, McGalla joked that it was a pre-competition segment: whichever group is the loudest wins, he said. The room lit up in clapping and whooping from the excited players.

McGalla began the morning by thanking the crew that helped prepare the event, from teachers to light and sound crew.

The 2020 ACE Competition was held at Lehighton Area Middle School and included contestants from Tamaqua, Palmerton, Northwestern Lehigh, Catasauqua, Jim Thorpe, Panther Valley, Lehighton, and Northern Lehigh.

The competition was moderated by Mark Lavine, a math teacher at Panther Valley Intermediate School.

All answers for the first rounds had to be given by the team captain, though wrong answers would not cause any point deductions and team conference was allowed. Scoring was one point for general questions and two points for bonus questions. No questions could be repeated.

All teams played a total of three rounds with each round having its own rules.

The second round was a 10-minute session that used buzzers. The answers were to only be given by the person who buzzed in and points were deducted if someone gave an incorrect answer before the question was fully asked. If someone gave an incorrect answer after the question was said, there was no penalty.

The third round was five minutes long, with points deducted for any incorrect answers and also used buzzers. No conferencing among teammates was allowed. Two points were given for both toss-up and bonus questions while one point was taken away for incorrect answers.

One steady rule applied to all rounds: If a question went unanswered by either side, no points were deducted or added.

The first group began with Panther Valley taking on Tamaqua.

The bulk of the questions asked were math or history questions though some were trivia. It was a strong start for Panther Valley, though Tamaqua quickly caught up.

Once Panther Valley and Tamaqua played their three rounds against one another, final scores were 41 points for Panther Valley and 24 points for Tamaqua.

Kim Laird, an English teacher for Panther Valley Intermediate School, congratulated the students as they walked off stage and shook all of their hands.

The next teams to play were Palmerton and Northern Lehigh.

A few of the questions in this round, as well as throughout the competition, included trivia about Pennsylvania history.

The scores were 47 to 9 by the end of round three, with Palmerton leading the way.

Catasauqua and Lehighton went against each other in the final round of the morning.

The end of the final round concluded shortly following and ended with 33 points for Lehighton and four points for Catasauqua.

The competition continues through Wednesday night.