Sebastian Goeller

Sebastian "Seb" Goeller
Noted subjects	History, Geography, Computational Math, European History/Geography, Germany, German
High school	Elkhorn South (2023-)
Middle school	Elkhorn Ridge (2020-2023)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Sebastian "Seb" Goeller is the captain of the Elkhorn South quiz bowl team in Omaha, Nebraska. Currently in his junior year, he has played quiz bowl at the middle and high school levels since 2020, captaining his middle school team at Elkhorn Ridge in 2022-23 and the Elkhorn South High School team since 2025. He is widely known as "The German" due to his German heritage, knowledge of Germany, fluency in German, and superstitious habit of wearing a Germany national soccer team jersey to every quiz bowl competition since early 2022. Several past and current students of Elkhorn South regard Seb as one of the best history, geography, and computational math players in the school's history.

Middle School

Seb was recruited for the middle school quiz bowl team during his time in elementary school, when the middle school quiz bowl coach saw Seb's state-qualifying performance at the school's National Geographic Geography Bee in 2020. Due to the lack of in-person quiz bowl in 2020-21, Seb's attended his first tournament in late 2021 at ESU3.

From 2021-23, Seb would cement himself as one of the best quiz bowlers of his grade, particularly though his history and geography knowledge. In November 2022, Seb was promoted to captain for his first tournament to lead the "Silver Collectors". The "Silver Collectors" team was notable for their dominance over teams (beating teams by margins of over 100 points each game, with 200-10 being the largest margin of victory) up until the finals, where they lost twice by 5-10 points. In three tournaments, this team placed second twice and third once.

High School

At the Elkhorn South freshman activity fair, Seb was recruited by the club's coach and captain. In 2023, Seb became the youngest player to play for the A team. He played his first NAQT tournament at the Nebraska Invitational with the Elkhorn South B team. At the 2024 Spring Nebraska Invitational, Seb and the Elkhorn South B team upset the Elkhorn A team, a team led by Carson Deprez that had qualified for the 2024 HSNCT. The Elkhorn South B team placed third. Seb also competed at the 2024 ESU9 State Tournament, placing third.

Seb's 2024-25 season was spent entirely on the A team following the departure of the seniors of the star-studded A team, including Mason Evans and Rachel Wu. This season was plagued by the "third place curse", where the Elkhorn South A team placed third at 7 competitions. To start the season, Seb started to track statistics on a notebook during each non-NAQT tournament that he attended, posting statistics and game summaries on a new @eshsqb Instagram account to keep alumni, club members, and Elkhorn South as a whole up-to-date on the progress of the team. At the 2024 Iowa Fall Open Western tournament, Seb qualified for the 2025 HSNCT, his first ever. He also competed at the 2025 IPNCT, setting a school record for highest placement at 153rd. He also placed 8th in the "Pop Culture and Sports" category, the highest subject placement of any player in Nebraskan history. After bleaching his hair in February 2025, Seb would score 120 points at a local tournament (school record at non-NAQT tournaments since stats were kept) and 420 points in 6 games (70ppg, both most points and highest PPG for non-NAQT tournament since stats were kept). Seb was awarded the Silver Buzzer and Most Efficient Player awards at the 2025 Elkhorn South Awards.

Following the departure of the club coach, Seb was promoted to captain in September 2025. As captain, he won his first ever tournaments at the Literature Bowl (where he buzzed once) and the Seward Classic tournament. He qualified for the 2026 HSNCT following his first ever victory over Elkhorn North A at the 2025 Fall Nebraska Invitational. He is currently planning on competing in open tournaments in 2026 with other members of the Elkhorn South A team due to the lack of NAQT tournaments in Nebraska. He is also helping his coaches, alongside Elkhorn captain Carson Deprez and Elkhorn North captain Noah Detloff, organize the first ever middle school NAQT tournament for 2026.

Style of Play

Sebastian coined the term "sicherheitsquizbowl" (safety quizbowl in German) to describe his style of play, negging as few times as possible while scoring as many tossups as possible. This leads him to power less at tournaments, but prevents him from selling games with a negligent neg.