Students at Sacramento State competed in the annual College Bowl tournament on Friday where some teams entered for fun and others to win.

From cowboys to Peter Pan, many teams dressed up for the event in the spirit of Halloween. Despite whether teams won or lost, students enjoyed the competitive nature of the competition.

"It looked like a lot of fun so we thought we would try it out," said Ashley Tapia, a junior majoring in communications.

Fraternity Kappa Sigma and Associated Students were some of the many organizations that competed in the tournament.

ASI lost to the campus Reserve Officer Training Corps team, called Fighting Dear, 65 to 30. ASI President Joshua Wood said they didn't do as well because there weren't many questions about sports and government.

"We are too busy handling the students' agenda," said contestant James Shelby II, ASI vice president of finance.

Colleen Ripchick, ASI vice president of university affairs, was one of the few spectators and came to the event to support ASI.

"They should have had a campus college bowl," Ripchick said. "If they did we would definitely win; ASI knows everything about the campus."

Competing groups prepared for the event in different ways. Amanda Leblanc, a senior who is a member of ROTC, said three ROTC teams competed in College Bowl and that they honed their skills by playing trivial pursuit.

"We thought we'll just have fun with it," Leblanc said. "We expect to lose the first round; if we win that would be great."

Christina Boggs, a senior majoring in geology, said there is no technique to College Bowl and it is not something you can study for.

"No matter the amount of practice they will ask off the wall questions," Boggs said. Adam Sweet, a contestant that competed in the all-star regional team last year against universities across the state, said he practices by going to pub quizzes at the Streets of London bar.

The Trivial Pursuers with Sweet, Ric Reyes, David Pinck and Richard Zeunges won against A Trivial Matter with Steve Nixon, Jason Kerby, Cisco Gutierrez and Ramya Narasimhan, going home with vouchers to the Sac State Dining Commons.

Although they lost in the finals, junior psychology major Cisco Gutierrez said their team was successful as it had students from different disciplines.

"We worked well together; we are a very well rounded team," Gutierrez said.

Richard Schiffers, the College Bowl organizer and university union associate director of programs, said there might be a secret to success as three of the four teams in the semifinal were compiled of individuals put into teams rather than teams made up of friends.

Schiffers said that he would select people for the all-star regional tournament by picking a broad selection of students who received the highest scores in Friday's tournament. He said he will assess how each students did overall as some were strong in some games and not others.

Overall Schiffers said he was impressed with the standard of the contestants.

"I think the competition was stronger than in years past," Schiffers said. "I think the quality of players is getting better every year and this year in particular was very solid throughout the tournament."

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