Pittsburgh 'Jeopardy!' contestant falls to high school physics teacher in Tournament of Champions

Fans hoping to root on a Western Pennsylvanian contestant in this week’s “Jeopardy!” mega-competition had their hopes dashed Wednesday night.

Lindsey Shultz, a Connellsville native who works as a physician and health care analyst in Pittsburgh, was knocked out of the popular game show’s 10-day Tournament of Champions in the semifinals.

Shultz came in second place at $12,799, falling to champion Francois Barcomb, a high school physics teacher from New Paltz, N.Y., who correctly answered the Final Jeopardy! question about Italian inventor Evangelista Torricelli. That pushed his final game score to nearly $35,000. Gilbert Collins, a college administrator from Princeton, N.J., came in third with $12,600.

Shultz is a Carnegie Mellon University alumnus who earned a medical degree from Cornell University and studied public health at Columbia University. She boasted a four-game, $100,000-plus winning streak earlier this year that earned her a place in the tournament. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

RELATED: Connellsville native, CMU grad to face James Holzhauer in ‘Jeopardy!’ champs tourney

For much of the game, Shultz maintained a healthy lead. She answered questions spanning a broad range of topics, including history, science, geography and literature.

She proved she knows that William Penn owned a Great Dane, which also is Pennsylvania’s official dog breed — but confused pop star Demi Lovato with another Disney-rooted celebrity, Selena Gomez.

Shultz appeared to still have a chance to advance going into the show’s last several minutes. At the start of the final round, Shultz had $17,400 on her scoreboard to Barcomb’s $22,000 and Gilbert’s $12,600.

Barcomb was the only one to get the Final Jeopardy! round right by identifying Torricelli, a student of Galileo and inventor of the barometer.

Shultz finished the semifinals episode with 21 correct answers and two incorrect ones, compared to 18 correct and one incorrect answer by Barcomb and 17 correct and two incorrect answers by Gilbert, The Jeopardy Fan blog reports.

The episode that aired Wednesday night — pretaped at the show’s studios in Culver City, Calif. — marked the eighth day of the tournament.

Among the contestants still in the running for the “Jeopardy!” superstar title: James Holzhauer, a professional sports gambler from Las Vegas who has earned nearly $2.5 million in more than three dozen appearances on the show, making him the third-highest winning contestant.

The winner will claim the $250,000 grand prize. The second-place finisher earns $100,000 and third place gets $50,000.

The finals are scheduled to air on WPXI-TV at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday nights.