As the teams played their final three qualifying rounds last week, there was tension in the air. When the dust settled, the team of Paul Casazza and Brett Cohen emerged triumphant. The eighth-graders are headed to the national tournament.
"It feels good - it's very exciting," said Casazza, who started playing Scrabble at the beach five years ago. "I like getting to create words, trying to build off [existing words] and working on our strategy. It's a great way to learn new words and how to spell them."
"I like the cool words we get to use," said Cohen, who learned to play Scrabble in fourth grade, under the direction of Judy Lewis, a teacher and Scrabble coach at Wilson School. "I've been trying to win [the SSMS tournament] for the last three years. It feels really good."
The Scrabble Club's activities span the school year. The middle school Scrabble coaches are Joan Zeller, a language arts and reading teacher, and Sally Belfi, also a language arts teacher. They spend many hours after school working with the club, and will join Cohen and Casazza in Boston. "It's wonderful to watch the students work so well together and learn together," said Zeller.
"We had outstanding sportsmanship in the club the year," said Belfi. "They played very fairly, and they were very focused."
The national tournament will include fifth- to eighth-grade students from around the country. More than 100 teams are expected to participate in the five rounds of play, competing for cash prizes, with $5,000 going to the winning team.
"It's great to be going," said Casazza. "I'm worried about what the competition will be like." Although the team was hesitant to share their "classified" strategy, the young men are not shy about sharing their hopes for the Boston tournament. "We hope to win first place," said Cohen.
More information on the National Scrabble Association can be found on its Web site, www.scrabble-assoc.com.
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