Members of the Kingston College quiz team pose with the TVJ Schools' Challenge Quiz trophy after defeating Calabar High in the finals at the Pegasus hotel on Wednesday night. - Colin Hamilton

A three-year winning streak by Calabar High School was broken by long-time rivals Kingston College in a nail-biting finish to the 2007 season of TVJ's Schools' Challenge Quiz on Wednesday night.

"We are happy and pleased that we finally won after 11 years and we want to thank the parents of the boys, the coaching staff, including Dr. Patrick Dallas, Steven Vasciannie, among others, for their support," said Christopher Hare, one of the team coaches.

From the first round, KC seemed to take a focused and calculated approach to the match, scoring nine points, three more than Calabar, who finished the round with six points.

The minutes segment of the match, which was Calabar's strongest part of the game, helped to close the gap. In the first minute KC upped its score to 16 points while Calabar moved up to 13 points.

In the second minute there were more focused attempts to get points by both teams. KC gained five points to move to 21 and Calabar gained six to increase its score to 19 points.

The third minute would ultimately bring the gap down to one point with KC ending the section with 29 points while Calabar was close behind with 28 points.

After some queries by team coaches and review by the judges, KC's score increased by a point to 30 and Calabar's score moved to 29 for a point gained for a French question.

Section three of the match was where KC was able to secure the win, buzzing only five times and getting only two questions wrong. Calabar, however, made several quick buzzes and attempted ten questions, six of which they got incorrect.

When the ding-dong buzzer section was finished, Calabar was on 25 points while KC ended on 32 to finish the competition with a seven-point difference.

Troy Stone, a member of the Calabar team, said his team came confidently to play a good match but failed to execute. "We entered the match confident hoping to do our best ... we studied hard, did our best but our knowledge was not good enough to beat KC," he said.

Many of the team members were obviously disappointed, crying after the match. Stone said that next year they will have to rebuild since half the team will be leaving this year.

Members of the Calabar team are Demar Barnett, Rexandrew Wright, Troy Stone, and Aldion Lee (captain).

Members of KC team are Dusean Harriott (captain), Rohan Lawrence, Naveed Samuda, and Andre Williams.