The Wagoner Bulldog Academic Team recently earned honors as the state runner-up in Class 4A making it the third year in a row that the Bulldogs were the top public school in the class.

Wagoner lost in the opening round of the state tournament but then the Bulldogs defeated Purcell, Poteau and Dickson before facing top ranked Classen SAS in the semifinals.

“It was the most stressful game of my coaching career,” said coach John French. “We came back from 90 points down to force sudden death and freshman Lilliana Rodriguez answered the question correctly to send us to the finals. It was like when Ethan Muehlenweg kicked the game-winning field goal in the 2022 state championship football game as pandemonium ensued. I’ll never forget it and even though we lost in the championship game to Holland Hall I couldn’t be prouder of the fight our team showed.”

Everyone on the team had a chance to shine in the tournament. Rodriguez, in addition to answering the sudden death question correctly, scored big in a round dealing with common Latin phrases. Hank Hardin came up big against Poteau correctly answering seven questions about electron configuration. Mario Young and Myles Carson shined in a category about famous deaths of 2023. Levi Ashe answered eight Bible questions to ice the game against Purcell. The team captain, Morgan Johnson, had clutch answers against Classen in a category about special right triangles and correctly answered a sudden death question against Poteau. Zac Daley scored answering questions about the Billboard Top 100 while Tyson Hodges was big in World History and Kael Humphries’ knowledge of World Leaders helped the Bulldogs beat Dickson.

Other members of the team that helped create another successful state tournament are Erik Carson, Maggie Wheeler, Caleb Carter, Clayton Soma, Holly Hodges, and Jayden Ashton.

CONGRATS ACADEMIC TEAM. WELL DONE!