The Tarleton State University Geography team, lead by Kelly Lemmons, assistant Professor of Social Sciences, won big at the Regional Southwestern Geography Bowl.

The team is made up of six students. Traditionally, teams are made up almost entirely of graduate students, however that was not the case for the Tarleton team, which has five undergrad students and one graduate student.

The students making up the team have to be either geography majors, minors or geography teaching assistants in order to be apart in the team.

“I want to represent Tarleton State University at an important regional conference of universities from the Southwest region of the United States,” Lemmons said.

He also hoped that by entering this competition, the team would be able to “show off the geographical prowess and understanding that students have gained through the new Geography and Geographic Information Systems program at Tarleton State University.”

Before the tournament took place, Lemmons wanted to make sure his team was ready, so he had them meet every week for five weeks. At these meetings, he said he would split the group of six into two teams of three and would quiz them by reading questions from previous competitions.

The tournament is set up as a round robin tournament in which every team competes against one other team in each of the six rounds. The team with the most combined points at the end of six rounds wins.

The Tarleton team recently took part in the Regional Southwestern Geography Bowl competition. The team won one, tied two and lost three rounds, according to Lemmons.

“The judges and moderators of the competition were impressed with how well [they] did despite their disadvantages,” Lemmons said.

According to Lemmons, the other teams were primarily composed of graduate students and most had competed in past competitions, so they had experience. However, all the practice they had done consistently for five weeks gave them confidence.

The team can compete every year at the Southwest Conference, which means they will have another shot at taking a win. Lemmons also plans on having students make the all-star team, who are individuals who scored the most points during the six rounds to represent the Southwest Region at an annual conference in the spring.

Lemmons hopes to return next year and compete once again and hopefully win. Until then, he said he will be preparing the students for the competition in order to have them ready to compete even better than they did this time.