Welcome to Greater Pennsylvania QuizBowl!

Welcome to GPQB! If this is your first time here, you might be interested in “What is Quizbowl?” and “How do I start a Quizbowl team?”

Current quizbowl players and coaches might want to check out our resources for “How to Get Better at Quizbowl.”

Looking for a tournament to play? Check out our tournament schedule for the upcoming year.

As always, feel free to comment on any post if you have any questions or feedback; we’re happy to help interested students or teachers with starting a new team at their schools. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @paquizbowl or email us at gpquizbowl@gmail.com.

GPQB APRIL INVITATIONAL (4/10) WRAP-UP

This Saturday, 19 teams faced off on NAQT’s IS-200A set in one of the final pre-nationals events of the season. This low-difficulty set gave many of PA’s upcoming players a chance to shine, foretelling many more years of high-level competition in PA quiz bowl. Full tournament results are here.

The 13-team Varsity division was led by Moravian Academy A, whose balanced effort by Angela, Eric, Samit, and Divit culminated in an 8-0 record and an impressive 22.56 PPB. Just behind Moravian was Friends Select, paced by #2 prelim scorer Caden with strong backup from Charlie. With just five negs among them and a clean 20 PPB, this squad demonstrated a considerable command of the canon that could prove even greater with less restraint. Besides Moravian, Friends Select was dealt their only other loss of the day by Henderson, who rounded out the podium with double-digit powers each from Vivek, Abheya, Mithra, and James. Henderson also put up a tournament-best 22.81 PPB, continuing their rapid rise in the PA quiz bowl ranks. In 4th was a young Great Valley A, comprised mainly of B- and C-team players. Despite going 0-3 in the afternoon, all four players put up double-digit PPGs, with Lucca in particular contributing a 14/13/2 stat line for the day.

Carver, led by Sebastian with great support from Ellie, took down an impressive Manheim Township team 290-165 to prevail in first consolation. Even without their main lineup, Manheim showed once again how deep their bench is with a staggering performance from lead prelim scorer Kevin, who put up 84 PPG in the morning. Just below, the formidable trio of Nikhil, Vasistha, and Cory from Downingtown East snagged a win over Downingtown STEM to claim seventh, even with STEM’s Yaduraj putting up over 60 PPG.

The second consolation bracket was topped by Huntingdon A, whose Nick contributed a mighty 20/18/4 combined stat line to notch five great wins over the course of the day, including a nail-biter against D-East in the morning. Falling just behind Huntingdon after a 185-370 loss was a five-person Cedar Crest, who were led commandingly by #3 prelim scorer Sam. Oxford A took the next spot, with Connor’s combined PPG of over 48 allowing playoff wins against such teams as Huntingdon B, who still averaged a promising one power per game. Rounding out the bracket was DuBois, who put up impressive numbers in each match and featured scoring from all four players.

In JV, State College swept the six-team double round robin with a perfect 9-0 record. Each player on the five-member squad put up multiple powers and over 20 PPG, even with second-place JV scorer Prithvi averaging over 62 PPG over the course of the day. Moravian Academy B were the runners-up, only losing to State College. Moravian’s Yiyi was the top JV scorer with nearly 68 PPG, and the squad’s 17.73 PPB was the best in the division. Oxford B’s dynamic duo of Keegan and Eliot, the latter of whom was third overall in PPG, clinched the bronze with a 5-4 record. Next, Great Valley B and a two-player Northeastern both finished 2-7, with the former’s Yash and the latter’s Nicholas both nearing 50 PPG. Finishing out the JV division was Brenner from Waynesboro, who posted several gets in each match of his solo bout.

As we head into the postseason, we sincerely thank all players, staff, and coaches for all of their work to make this unprecedented season work. It’s been a joy to see our community come together and our players grow so much this year, and the remarkable progress our younger players demonstrated this month makes us more excited than ever to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible. We hope to see everyone once again on May 1st for our final tournament of the season!

–Danny

GPQB February Invitational Wrap-Up (2/13/20)

On February 13, 24 Pennsylvania teams competed online in GPQB’s first event of the spring semester. Final statistics for the varsity division can be found here, while those for the JV division can be found here.

Varsity:

With Chester County teams excluded due to their intermediate unit using the question set, Manheim Township A solidified their claim to the #2 spot in the GPQB rankings. MT A went 9-0 on the day and were never seriously threatened, with AZ leading the way but solid contributions from Baybars and Deeya as well. Even though it’s a small sample size of 5 rounds, breaking 23 PPB on an IS set is nothing to sneeze at either as this team continues to improve through the year.

Moravian A took home second place with a 330-220 victory over bronze medal finishers Hempfield A. As the site’s resident Lehigh Valley native, it’s been quite nice to see Moravian’s improvement over the years. Divik led this team in scoring, with Angela and Eric posting nearly identical PPGs of 28 and change as well. Hempfield also boasted some balanced scoring from their top three of Carsten, Michael, and Jenna, even if they couldn’t quite get over the hump against the top two teams. Cedar Crest A came in fourth, led by prelim top scorer Danny, while Manheim Township B put together their best performance of the season to take fifth, including a 365-325 upset of Moravian A. Kevin and Ellie served as the top scorers for MT B, as they once again demonstrated the depth of their program. Lastly, while they had a tough go of it in the playoffs, North Catholic did well to score some upset victories in the prelims to make the top bracket.

The second bracket was topped by Friends Select in their debut for the 2020-21 year. This was a breakout performance for Caden, who got several strong powers throughout the day, and Corey, Becca, and Charlie each contributed 1-2 tossups per game and seem like solid specialists. Pittsburgh Central Catholic suffered an upset loss to North Catholic in the prelims to knock them to the second bracket, but they had the highest PPB of those teams (19.09) as Joe and Jude continue to have promising seasons. Trinity A also returned to the circuit at this event and finished a respectable 5-5, with Aaron putting up some impressive scoring numbers. Young players and teams rounded out the bracket, with Moravian B, DuBois, and State College each demonstrating some good knowledge on a challenging question set.

Carver HSES A, who had the misfortune of being the odd team out in the toughest prelim bracket, ran the table in the final consolation flight. Sebastian and Ellen continued to comprise the team’s top two, with Kamal and Kimberly chipping in as well. Wallenpaupack A went 3-1 in the bracket, while Bishop Canevin, Berwick, and Waynesboro rounding out the field.

JV:

In the full round robin, Hempfield B went 6-0 and also won all their matches comfortably. Zeke and Chase both put up over 55 PPG as the two top scorers in the field, in a positive sign for Hempfield’s growth and development as a talent-nurturing program. Cedar Crest B and Berwick Middle tied at 4-2, with Berwick winning a close head-to-head matchup 175-165. Max was the top scorer for Cedar Crest, while Jack did so for Berwick. Trinity B got balanced scoring from all four players and beat Berwick Middle by a 190-125 score, and Carver B, North Catholic B, and Carver C each got some competitive matches in as well.

Overall, it was another excellent event for Pennsylvania quizbowl in the online universe. A big thanks to all our staffers, and we hope to see you all again for our mirror of RAFT II on March 20!

-Ryan

Spring 2021 Online Pennsylvania Quizbowl Tournaments Update

There’s a solid slate of upcoming events for quizbowl teams in Pennsylvania throughout the rest of the Spring Semester (as well as potential national championships), but as we’ve seen before there’s a lot of demand for quizbowl and a relatively limited supply of readers. We need staff at basically all of these events to help expand the field, so please get in touch with the tournament director for each event (contact information is on each tournament announcement, click the link) if you’re available to volunteer and help.

March 6th: Philadelphia City-Wide Championship [Philadelphia Teams Only, still several spots available] on NAQT question set IS-194A

March 13th: Pennsylvania Middle School Tournament [Middle School teams only] on the TAILS question set

March 20th: GPQB March on the RAFT question set [relatively short waitlist]

April 10th: GPQB April on NAQT question set IS-200A [long waitlist]

May 1st: SATURNALIA (hard HS question set) mirror, details to come

May 15th: DART (regular HS question set) mirror

GPQB Mid-Season Poll, 2020-2021

Friends,

We’ve reached the mid-point of a weird, virtual-only quizbowl season. It’s been challenging, and undoubtedly the camaraderie of a normal year is missed. This doesn’t mean though that top teams and great competition are missing. As is tradition, the GPQB gang has voted and put together a poll of the top 10 teams in the state. The format of the season means we’ve been able to see the whole state compete together and have many direct comparisons to make. Without further ado, here’s the top teams for the midseason:

1. Great Valley A (110 points, unanimous #1, =)
2. Manheim Township (97 points, =)
3. Hempfield (87 points, +1)
4. State College (74 points, +4)
5. Moravian Academy (63 points, previously u/r)
6. Cedar Crest (60 points, -1)
7. Henderson (35 points, +2)
8. Great Valley B (32 points, -1)
9. Oxford (31 points, -6)
10. Pittsburgh Central Catholic (12 points, +4)

Also receiving votes were Allderdice (1) and Downingtown East (1)

We wish all competitors a safe and healthy spring.

-The Staff

The voters in this poll were: Ryan Bilger, Jamie Faeder, Ben Herman, Antonio Jimenez, Nick Luca, Andrew Nadig, Colton Sanden, Alex Sankaran, Steven Silverman, Will Yaeger, and Albert Zhang.

GPQB December Invitational Wrap-Up (12/5/20)

The final GPQB tournament of 2020 was held online on December 5 in collaboration with the Penn quizbowl team. The event featured 24 varsity teams and 14 JV teams competing on IS-198A and turned out to be one of the most memorable this year, with close games and impressive showings in both divisions. 

Stats are here.

Varsity

An undefeated Great Valley A finished in first place, sweeping this fall’s GPQB online invitational series. The dominant lineup of Anish, Nolan, Rishi, and Anshu notched 172 points per game in the tossups-only prelims before adding 25.11 points per bonus to their scoring in the afternoon rounds. GV A hit 690 points in the final match against second place Hempfield, which was led by Carsten’s 70 PPG with strong support from Michael, Sebastian, and Colin. Their closest game of the day was a 315-310 win over third place Manheim Township A in round 8. Manheim Township A’s duo of AZ and Baybars was backed up with solid buzzes and bonus pulls from Scotty and Deeya, and the team combined to tie GV A’s total of 40 powers across 5 prelim rounds. Fourth place went to New Jersey’s Middlesex County Academy B, actually the stronger of their two teams in the varsity field. 

Moravian Academy A and Henderson A finished tied for fifth place. Moravian’s balanced buzzing was complemented by good collaboration on bonuses, as the team was physically together (but socially distanced) in a classroom and able to confer out loud. Henderson’s five-person lineup reached 141 PPG in the prelims, with lead scorer Abheya getting 15 powers to only 2 negs. GV B tied for seventh with Cedar Crest, which was led by Danny’s 117 PPG in the prelims. Ninth went to Pittsburgh Central Catholic and Oxford A, whose lead scorer Chris finished the prelims with 94 PPG. State College (playing without Ananya) and Downingtown STEM A rounded out the parallel championship brackets.

In the lower brackets, Downingtown East B and Carver A finished with 6-4 records across the tournament. Other teams from D-East, MT, MCA, and GV were joined by PALCS A, western PA teams like Pine-Richland, Huntingdon, North Catholic, and Westmont Hilltop, and Berwick from the northeastern part of the state.

JV

Henderson B went undefeated over the six tossup-only prelim rounds and three playoff rounds, led by Elan’s 75 PPG. Moravian B finished second with 16.67 PPB in the afternoon, and High Tech A and B (NJ) took third and fourth.

It was great to see Northeastern at the top of the second bracket as well as B teams from Oxford, PALCS, and D-STEM. The third bracket featured Waynesboro as well as B, C, and D teams from previously mentioned schools. 

Overall, this semester’s largest online GPQB tournament went smoothly and drew talented teams from all over the state. Though we would usually do a midseason poll before winter break, we will be waiting until after Morgantown’s tournament on January 9 (register here). We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and look forward to seeing everyone in the new year!

–Jackie

GPQB NOVEMBER INVITATIONAL WRAP-UP (11/14/20)

This past Saturday, 31 teams went head-to-head on NAQT’s IS-197 set in GPQB’s third event of the year. This first regular difficulty tournament of the PA season gave local teams—alongside some out-of-state friends—a great opportunity to prove their might at higher levels of play. Full results from the tournament can be found here.

In the mighty 20-team varsity division, Great Valley A once again went undefeated to notch their second GPQB Invitational victory of the season. After sweeping through their tossup-only prelim bracket with a commanding 210 points per game, Great Valley easily kept all other top teams at bay in the tossup-bonus-style playoffs. Though Anish led the team as the third-highest individual prelim scorer, Great Valley’s deep specialization was still on full display, with teammates Anshu, Nolan, and Rishi each racking up double-digit powers and at least 28 points per game over the course of the day.

The Great Valley squad was met in the finals by runners-up State College, led by Ananya and Darren and with sizable contributions from Prithvi and Elijah. The four went undefeated before their 460-220 loss in the championship, proving that this perennial PA powerhouse is here to stay. Rounding out the podium were Manheim Township A, who lost a nail-biting 335-350 semifinal match to State College despite the incredible showing of AZ, whose staggering 51/23/11 statline was complemented by great work from teammates Baybars, Deeya, and Ellie. Manheim took the bronze in a win against Cedar Crest, led by the tournament’s top scorer, Danny, who has quickly minted himself a rising star in the PA quizbowl scene.

Just below, fifth place was shared by a well-balanced Great Valley B, a formidable Carver A led forcefully by Sebastian, and New Jersey’s Middlesex County Academy A. Downingtown East A came right behind thanks to balanced scoring and an exceptional points per bonus (nearly 20– the third-highest in the field), which proved to be enough to conquer Pittsburgh Central Catholic despite a runaway individual effort from Joe. Henderson A overtook Oxford, which featured second-place prelim scorer Chris, to hand both teams 1-4 records and produce a three-way tie for ninth with PCC, with a solid DuBois team taking twelfth.

In consolation, Downingtown STEM A and Ohio’s Olentangy Berlin A both picked up 3-0 records to tie for thirteenth. They were trailed by Manheim Township B and Great Valley C, both of whom resolutely bounced back from 0-4 prelim records to go 2-1 in the afternoon. Manheim demonstrated some deep pockets of knowledge through a well-rounded scoring effort and a bonus conversion of over 17, and a stellar individual performance by Great Valley’s Yash further signifies the both programs’ bottomless pools of talent. Huntingdon A and Downingtown East B relied on very even scoring to secure T-17 finishes, and great leadership from Westmont Hilltop’s Anthony and North Catholic’s Lily allowed their respective teams to maintain impressive stats despite the tough competition.

In the eleven-team JV tournament, Middlesex County Academy B, fronted by top individual scorer Aditya, prevailed with a perfect 9-0 record and an outstanding 16 points per bonus in the afternoon. They were closely followed by fellow out-of-staters Morgantown, led decisively by Celina, as well as PA’s Henderson B and a very balanced Northeastern squad, who put up an outstanding performance in their pyramidal debut. Finishing out the bracket were Downingtown STEM B and Carver C, both showing great promise with a handful of powers and at least eleven points per bonus. 

Carver B came out on top in the JV consolation bracket with three straight playoff wins, overcoming the challenge posed by Huntingdon B’s powerful duo of Nick and Brandon, who put up over thirteen points per bonus. To fill out the bracket, Downingtown East C’s three-person crew bested Carver D. Such strong results from these younger squads is a testament to just how deep the bench runs in PA.

In these difficult times, we are very thankful to still be able to engage with our amazing community through this game, and we sincerely appreciate the efforts of all of the staff, coaches, and players who make this possible. We look forward to seeing everyone again at our final tournament of the year on December 5th!

–Danny

GPQB OCTOBER INVITATIONAL WRAP-UP (10/24/20)

On Saturday, October 24th, 25 teams were on hand for the second event of the PA quizbowl season, held on NAQT’s IS-196A set. As the first non-novice event of the season, this was many teams’ first chance to see how they stacked up against their rivals, and a field packed with strong teams from all corners of the state led to several great matchups. Full stats for the tournament can be found here.

The varsity division, which used the same tossup-only prelims format as GPQB’s October Novice event, was won by an utterly dominant Great Valley A team who clearly demonstrated why they were voted unanimous number one in our statewide preseason poll. In a tour de force, Anish, Nolan, Rishi, and Anshu cleared the field, running up colossal margins even against other top playoff teams like Manheim Township, Cedar Crest, and Kiski. The fearsome squad was led by Anish with 80 points per game but featured no less than three scorers in the top 15 of the tournament. 

Second place went to Manheim Township A, led in scoring by AZ, who racked up an impressive 42 powers over 10 games and received solid support from teammates Baybars, Deeya and Elena. Manheim went undefeated in the prelims and won their first few playoff rounds by healthy margins but took a nasty 90-615 loss to Great Valley in the penultimate round of playoffs. They redeemed themselves to take second with a convincing last-round win over third-place Morgantown A, a strong West Virginia team led by Silas that notched notable victories over several top PA teams. 

Cedar Crest A and Kiski finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively, mirroring their relative pre-season rankings. These two teams were led by powerhouse generalists Danny and Eddie, whose 40+ powers each propelled them to second and first in overall scoring with a respective 92 and 117 points per game. A tense sixth-round matchup between the two teams ended in a narrow 360-320 victory for Cedar Crest thanks to crucial contributions by Danny’s teammates. 

Sixth place went to a balanced Henderson team that performed well in the prelims but took a series of tough losses to the other top playoff teams in the afternoon.

A balanced Great Valley B squad won the middle playoff bracket, showcasing the depth that has been a hallmark of GV’s program in recent years. They were followed by Allderdice and a Kevin-led Manheim Township B, whose solid performances vindicated the handful of votes they received in the preseason poll. State College, playing without their top scorer Ananya, still managed victories over C teams from Manheim Township and Great Valley who put up respectable performances of their own.

Pittsburgh Central Catholic, making their second appearance this season after a win at GPQB’s October Novice Tournament, won the bottom playoff bracket behind strong scoring from Joe and Jude. Another Western PA team, DuBois, finished just behind them led by Timothy’s 57 PPG. Carver HSES A, paced by a 46-PPG effort by Sebastian, and Huntingdon both picked up wins over an Ian-led Bishop Canevin team to complete the bottom bracket.

The JV division, which featured only eight teams, was played as a round-robin where tossups and bonuses were read for all seven rounds. It was won by a short-handed Downingtown STEM team who nevertheless managed to win every matchup they faced. Yaduraj, whose 91 PPG propelled STEM to victory, led the division in individual scoring, followed by Morgantown B’s Venkat with 63 PPG. An out-of-state High Tech team finished in second, while third place went to Carver B, who came within 30 points of defeating STEM during a close Round 1 game. Carver’s C and D teams rounded out the JV division together with B teams from Morgantown and Cedar Crest and a Wallenpaupack team paced by strong scoring from Abby.

Teams from both divisions seemed to enjoy the opportunity to compete, albeit not in person, and both moderators and players appeared to take to the modified online format fairly well. We hope to see many of the same teams (as well as a few newcomers) in action again at GPQB’s next tournament on November 14th!

-Will

Adjusting to Online Quizbowl: Some Thoughts

I was rather apprehensive at first about running quizbowl events online. In the past, online quizbowl events tended to be disorganized, prone to cheating accusations, and took far too much time for everyone.

Thus far in this COVID-affected 2020-2021 quizbowl season, most of those fears have been alleviated. Thanks in part to very comprehensive guides published by NAQT (for Zoom) and PACE (for Discord), there’s more material than ever before to help guide tournament directors, readers, coaches, and players. In Pennsylvania, the two GPQB-organized online events so far have gone quite well. A few observations based on my experience reading for GPQB’s October event on Zoom as well as helping run another event in California on Discord:

• Prepare Before the Event. Everyone involved in the tournament from players to readers to the tournament directors needs to do a bit more preparation for online quizbowl than they would for an in-person quizbowl event. All players and moderators should test out different video and audio setups to see which ones work best with whatever platform (Zoom/Discord/etc.) is being used for the event. Small suggestions like making sure every player/coach/observer indicates their team (with the appropriate A/B/C/etc. letter!) at the start of their username can save a ton of time, especially on Zoom. Any event using Discord needs to be very familiar with Discord bots and how the tournament will be run there since there won’t be much time for troubleshooting during the event.
  
• Shorten Everything. Tournaments should be shorter overall in terms of the number of planned rounds. Running a standard set of 5-6 line tossup questions with 3-part bonuses seems to take about 40-45 minutes, even with a competent, experienced moderator. This may mean that teams only play 7-8 matches, but that’s better than exhausting players and moderators since online quizbowl seems significantly more mentally draining than in-person quizbowl.
  
  This means that shorter (yet still pyramidal) tossups and bonuses more akin to NAQT style than 5-6 liners are ideal. This also has a nice anti-cheating preventive effect (and 5 seconds on the bonuses seemed fine; any longer I think might open up more opportunities for cheating). Eventually, it would also be nice to see question writers change around the way questions for online quizbowl are written to make TUs shorter and potentially redo bonuses as one or two parts, but that might be harder to make happen.
  
• Approach Bonuses Differently. Teams need to figure out a new way to speed up their discussion on bonuses given the difficulties in trying to communicate quickly online. Perhaps have each person offer a guess and then empower the captain to respond with their best guess after the reader asks “Answer?” on each part. Practicing different strategies–maybe even using text–should probably be a focus in practice for teams planning on attending events using bonuses. For those parts where the answer is generally clear, remembering to “direct” your answer to the moderator by saying “direct(ed)” is key to making the match flow faster and will be highly appreciated by all.
  
• Staff is the Limiting Reagent. As I wrote in a post on the HSQB forums recently, online quizbowl is more staff-intensive (and in some ways requires more out of staffers) than in-person quizbowl. The demand for online quizbowl in PA and around the country has been quite high, but the staffing pool–for reasons that are still not fully clear–seems smaller. If anyone reading this is interested in reading online, definitely get in touch with TDs of upcoming tournaments; you can read from your own home without having to get up at 6 AM to drive to a tournament site!
  
  It also helps to have multiple TDs at online quizbowl events to help deal with questions and issues as they pop up without slowing down the rooms. Ideally, 2-3 TDs who exclusively focus on running the event as a whole instead of reading in a room can make the whole event run like clockwork.
  
• Keep studying and playing! It’s not in-person quizbowl, but online quizbowl isn’t too different and still rewards students who love to learn. It takes a bit more time than in-person quizbowl, but it does have some real benefits in terms of cutting down on transportation costs and making quizbowl more accessible than ever before for many schools. Although the current fields for upcoming GPQB events are packed to the brim at the moment, there will be more events in the Spring and there are always opportunities around the country for schools to play (though check with TDs about any potential geographic restrictions).

GPQB October Novice (10/3) Wrap-UP

This most unorthodox of Pennsylvania quizbowl seasons got underway this past Saturday, with fourteen teams from eleven schools coming together in the digital world of Zoom for GPQB’s novice kickoff tournament. Full stats for the day can be found here.

(Note: In order to keep the event moving and try something new, this tournament used tossup-only preliminary rounds before adding bonuses for the playoff rounds. This explains the lower scores and lack of PPB stats from the first several games for each team.)

Two Pittsburgh-area schools contested the championship, with Pittsburgh Central Catholic notching a 420-205 victory over North Catholic to claim the title. Both teams were led by very strong performances from their top players, with Jude from PCC and Ryan from North Catholic each exceeding 100 PPG on the day. Joe from PCC also contributed 95 points per game in the playoff rounds. With the western part of the state in particular looking wide open this year, these excellent results might be something good to build on for these two schools. Young players from State College and Great Valley constituted the other two top bracket playoff teams, with both showing their characteristic well-rounded scoring, paced by Elijah and Ritish, respectively. These two deep programs remain among the cream of the crop amongst PA schools, and it’s easy to see why in light of efforts like these.

Penn Manor came out on top in the first consolation bracket, finishing with a 7-3 record. Gabe and Claire led the way in scoring for PM, showing off some of their strong knowledge as they begin the post-Connor era, with 34 and 24 powers, respectively. Cedar Crest A took 6th place, with Sam scoring highest for a group of young players that will look to complement Danny, who helped out as a staffer, on our poll’s 5th-ranked team. Downingtown East returned to the weekend circuit and notched some victories with a two-man team of Jeevan and William, while Huntington B rounded out this bracket.

Huntington’s A team topped the final bracket, with relatively close contributions from Alex and Taran at the helm. Cedar Crest B came next, followed by a B team from Carver HSES. Carver HSES A and Allderdice each finished with alike records, with the Pittsburgh school winning the head-to-head battle between the two. South Side also picked up a victory as the remaining team.

Overall, it was great to get back to seeing Pennsylvania’s best and brightest show off their knowledge, even virtually this time. Our staff had a great time bringing you this event, and the players we spoke with had fun as well. We hope to see you and your teams for our next event on October 24!

–Ryan

Pre-Season Poll, 2020-2021

Friends,

This quizbowl season will be the strangest, wackiest we can remember, as we’ve been sent online by the ongoing health crisis. This does not mean, however, that we will stop ranking, acknowledging, and complimenting the achievements of our teams. In fact, as all of Pennsylvania will play as one rather than our more typical sub-circuits, it means we can really see how teams stack up. There was plenty of turnover but that only means opportunities for new schools and teams to shine. Without further ado, here are our 2020-21 pre-season team rankings:

1) Great Valley A (130 points, Unanimous #1)
2) Manheim Township A (117 points)
3) Oxford (93 points)
4) Hempfield (88 points)
5) Cedar Crest (65 points)
6) Kiski Area (52 points)
7) Great Valley B (49 points)
8) State College (47 points)
9) Henderson (45 points)
10) Friends Select (13 points)

Also receiving votes were Allderdice (10 points), Carver HSES (3), Manheim Township B (2), and Pittsburgh Central Catholic (1)

Best of luck with everyone’s season! Novice players begin on 10/3 and the rest of our season commences in 10/24.

-The Staff

Voters in this poll were: Ryan Bilger, Chris Chiego, Jamie Faeder, Ben Herman, Antonio Jiminez, Nick Luca, Andrew Nadig, Toby Palmer, Colton Sanden, Alex Sankaran, Steven Silverman, Will Yaeger, and Albert Zhang