The Upper School Ethics Bowl team won the annual Southern California High School Ethics Bowl on Feb. 10 at Chapman University. Currently undefeated, the team won against 20 schools from around the Southern California area. With the victory, the team moves up to the divisional round, where they will face off against another undefeated team from Northern California. The team consisted of five core and two alternate members.

Co-leader Maya Ray ’25 said the team thoroughly prepared all potential cases and was meticulous in practicing before the tournament.

“Since the start of the year, we have been going over the 20 possible cases that could have come up in regionals,” Ray said. “This is so we are able to find nuance in our arguments and identify possible holes. We then had our tryouts and started adding more and more practices. The week before our tournament, outside of our normal lunch practice, we usually met every night to go over our stance and talk through certain ethical arguments we have.”

Andrew Wesel ’24 said the team worked rigorously and was able to claim their victory after placing second the previous year.

“We’ve been putting in work to our strategy for the last two years,” Wesel said. “Last year, we also made it to the finals, but didn’t win that last round. I’m very proud that the team was able to come back and finish what we couldn’t do last year.”

Ray also said although it is nerve-wracking to compete, she still had a strong sense of confidence in the group.

“I always get nervous when I go up to compete, but that comes with anything that holds weight,” Ray said. “I did have faith in every person on the team, and I knew that no matter what the results were, we would have fought and tried our absolute best.