Victoria Groce of Point Breeze won the “Jeopardy!” Invitational Tournament Tuesday night, including the grand prize of $100,000 and a place in the “Jeopardy!” Masters Tournament that’s expected to air on ABC in May.

Groce, a frequent trivia quiz team competitor, first played “Jeopardy!” back in 2005 but more recently she was one of “the chasers” on the third season of ABC’s “The Chase.”

“Going in the thing I was most nervous about was would I be able to buzz in,” Groce said Tuesday of her return to “Jeopardy!” “It had just been so long and I figured everyone [else] had more recent experience than I did.”

But by her second Invitational Tournament game Groce felt like she had the buzzer under control.

“In the finals, I think the toughest thing was the way they filmed the episodes, which is back-to-back-to-back,” Groce said. “In episode one of the finals I had that locked until the very last clue and then I lost the game. Then 10 minutes later you’re up there taping the next episode. That would have been the easiest time for things to fall apart if I had let that get into my head.”

Groce, who grew up as a musician, said playing as choral accompaniment taught her the necessity of just going on if she made a mistake and to not let the mistake bother her. She and her trivia teammates also invoke the notion of “strategic goldfish brain” in such situations.

“It’s the ability to forget things when it is to your advantage to do so,” she said. “You’re always gonna make mistakes – I missed a couple of gettable Daily Doubles in the third game — but the important thing is to just keep going.”

As for the “Hi Nora!” Groce wrote alongside her Final Jeopardy answers, that was a note to Groce’s daughter, who couldn’t attend the Invitational Tournament taping due to her studies at Chatham University.

Since winning the Invitational Tournament, which filmed at the end of February, Groce has been preparing for “Jeopardy!” Masters where she’ll face off against James Holzhauer, Mattea Roach, Matt Amodio, Yogesh Raut and one other player who’s yet to be named.

“The biggest thing I’ve been doing is a huge number of word puzzles because that was the thing I struggled with most was the word play categories,” Groce said. “I go to a coffee shop pretty much every day and spend an hour, an hour-and-a-half doing crosswords and word puzzles like anagrams, because that’s the sort of thing that they ask and I’m not as good at, so I’m trying to improve as much as I can over the limited time that I have.”

Marvel designer at IUP

Indiana University of Pennsylvania will welcome back 1988 graduate and former Allison Park resident Susan Burig, graphic designer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for a free presentation at 6 p.m. Thursday in Sprowls Hall’s McVitty Auditorium.

Burig’s work includes Marvel’s Disney+ series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” and filmed-in-Pittsburgh Netflix movie “The Pale Blue Eye.”

Thurston to visit

WQED Multimedia welcomes Baratunde Thurston, host of PBS’s “America Outdoors With Baratunde Thurston,” to Pittsburgh to talk about his experiences in the outdoors at 7 p.m. April 23 at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Oakland.

Register to attend for free (or to buy a $100 ticket to a VIP reception pre-show at 6 p.m.) at https://wqedevents.ticketbud.com/baratunde-thurston-live-.

‘Donkey Hodie’ game

Timed to April as Autism Acceptance Month, Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions will introduce a new free game, “Cousin Hodie Playdate,” themed to the PBS Kids series “Donkey Hodie.”

The game, which helps players identify their own feelings and the feelings of peers, will be available at pbskids.org and on the PBS Kids games app beginning April 12.

Kept/canceled

ABC renewed “Will Trent” for a third season.

CBS renewed all its “FBI” series for the 2024-25 TV season and will keep the original “FBI” through at least the 2026-27 TV season.

NBC canceled its “Quantum Leap” sequel series after two seasons.

Channel surfing

Viewers may have noticed a new meteorologist on KDKA-TV but Ashton Altieri is not a new hire; he’s a freelancer filling in. … Pat Sajak’s final episode of “Wheel of Fortune” before he retires will air June 7 (7 p.m., WPXI-TV). … Kit Harrington tells Entertainment Weekly HBO shelved its proposed Jon Snow-focused “Game of Thrones” sequel series.

You can reach TV writer Rob Owen at rowen@triblive.com or 412-380-8559. Follow @RobOwenTV on Threads, Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook. Ask TV questions by email or phone. Please include your first name and location.

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