Henry Clay High School junior Jay Schrader missed the finals of the Jeopardy! teen tournament by $1 Tuesday night.

Schrader and fellow Kentuckian Shelby Malone of Grayson faced off against Bradley Silverman of Alpharetta, Ga., in the semi-finals of the two-week tourney. All three had won games in last week’s competition.

Silverman started the game running away with the Magna Carta category, while Schrader dug himself into a hole by missing several questions. At the first break, Silverman was way ahead at $5,600, while Malone had $400 and Schrader was in the red at -$400. But Malone drove back across the board and Schrader worked his way back into contention with animated films. Schrader also did well with the category about metropolitan areas, but missed a Daily Double question about Kansas City. The first round ended with Silverman at $6,000, Malone at $3,800 and Schrader at $1,000.

The Double Jeopardy round was much more competitive, with the contestants splitting up categories. We were particularly proud of Schrader and Malone dominating classical music. While sports are Schrader’s forte, Malone did really well including hitting a Daily Double about Polo, and Schrader scored big knowing Edward Lear popularized limericks. They ended the two rounds with Silverman at $13,200, Malone at $10,000 and Schrader at $11,400.

The Final Jeopardy question was about literary characters, but Silverman also did some math. All three correctly answered the question about a boy with amazing leaping abilities: Tarzan. Schrader bet the farm, moving up to $22,800, but Silverman knew all he had to bet was for Schrader’s potential farm, plus one, and beat him with $22,801.

Silverman moves on to face Audrey Hosford of Maryland and the winner of Wednesday night’s game in the two-day finals Thursday and Friday. The winner will receive a minimum of $75,000.

During the interview segment, Schrader and Malone both talked about volunteering at their churches.