On Sept. 30, North Greenville University hosted the second annual Crusader Cup, a high school academic tournament for upstate middle and high schools. Twenty-seven teams representing 14 schools competed in the tournament.
The field was divided into varsity (grades 9-12) and junior varsity (grades 7-10) teams. Questions covered a variety of academic areas including literature, history, science, math, geography, fine arts, religion, mythology, and social sciences, as well as popular culture and general knowledge.
In the varsity competition, first place went to the Mauldin A team (Steve Chappell, Will Chappell, Joseph Webb, and Chas McGill) who ended the tournament with a 6-1 record in the preliminaries and with a win in the finals over Daniel A (Jason Hedetniemi, Claire Greenstein, Angela Ziegler, Nitin Balakrishnan, Jaydeep Srimani, and Nayel Khan), who went 6-0 in the initial rounds and took second place. Third place went to the Hillcrest A team (Chris Shuping, Buddy Garner, Luke Anderson, and Joslyn Dunn) who were 5-1. The Southside Christian C team (Eric Goodwin, Taylor Garrick, Caleb Furrow, and Renee Anderson) took home the JV trophy with a 6-1 record.