2018 SSNCT Wrap-Up

Last weekend, 11 teams from 9 Pennsylvania schools tried their hand at NAQT’s Small School National Championship Tournament (SSNCT), with some decidedly good results. For more information on the tournament itself, see our preview of the event from last week.

Full stats are here.

Public Division Wrap-Up

The traditional public school division witnessed a truly impressive undefeated run to the championship from Glasgow High in Kentucky. Meanwhile, the PA teams acquitted themselves well to an exciting challenge.

Camp Hill with their haul for this SSNCT. Photo courtesy Camp Hill’s team Twitter

The highest finish (a 10th place-tie) went to Camp Hill, who extended their streak of top 11 finishes into an eighth season. Alex’s 18-power performance capped off his high school career with a bang, and Sydney led the team in scoring with 42.46 PP20 (Points per 20 tossups). They got to T-10 by winning a head-to-head match-up with Huntingdon A, who were in as impressive a form as they’ve ever been. Steady improvement since they joined the circuit three years ago has produced their best finish yet. Andrew led them in scoring, and as a 10th grader, was named one of NAQT’s rising stars for the event. While it’s a shame when a PA team has to eliminate another at nationals, both did well and should be proud of how far they got.

South Side from Beaver County also made the playoffs, with a pair of thrilling wins against South Shelby and Pilot Grove, both from Missouri, in the final prelim rounds. This took South Side from 4-4 and on the ropes to 6-4 and into the playoffs. Both of those final wins were both by 20 points or less. Good clutch performances like these under pressure are a great confidence boost, and I hope South Side parlays this into even more next season.

Outside the playoffs, Westmont Hilltop wound up just short at 5-5 with one of the best statistical performances from a non-playoff team. They did capture quizbowl’s hearts again with their second year of featured jamming with one player’s recorder on NAQT’s Instagram. Huntington’s B team also went 5-5, flaunting our expectations of them and showing the team might have sustained depth for years to come. Lakeland unfortunately finished 4-6, on account of their best player not making the tournament due to illness. While a disappointing finish for their best season ever, they still have lots to be proud of. Speaking of Northeastern PA, Riverside High also finished 4-6 and was the only Pennsylvania team that was completely new to pyramidal invitationals this year to attend this SSNCT. In their nationals debut, they performed solidly, especially their captain, Jake, with 34 PP20. It’s great to see them challenging themselves and we are happy to have them aboard the circuit.

Open Division Wrap-Up

Winchester Thurston and Friends Select play an all-PA match.

The biggest story from this year’s SSNCT for PA was unquestionably Philadelphia’s own Friends Select, who took home second place overall in the Open Division (Private and Charter and Selective Magnet schools). As teams seek to prepare for the later nationals in May, FSS looks to be peaking in fine form. Friends Select powered as many as 10 questions in one round, and got key contributions from a number of players. Saras, one of their fourth chairs, managed to power more than he 10’d, and Jake had the tournament of his life (to date) with several key powers in the playoff run. FSS was also the only team to defeat the tournament champion, Early College at Guilford (NC). This occurred in the first game of the finals (in which FSS had a disadvantage) after Friends Select had lost to ECG three times already. In a convoluted, multi-protest, very tense game that took almost an hour to complete (and can be viewed on YouTube here), the Falcons came out on top. While they lost the second game of the finals, they have so much to be proud of and made the eventual champions “go the distance.” Kudos to all five players as well as GPQB Coach of the Year Abbi Smith on a great performance.

Not to be ignored behind them was a quite excellent Tie-5th place finish for Winchester Thurston. This longtime Pittsburgh powerhouse got there once again with their signature balanced attack, as all four players cleared 19 PP20. While their overall scoring averages would put them in line with teams than finished lower, Thurston continues to play scrappy and beat teams at any level, a trend from previous nationals. Moravian Academy sent two teams to the event and their A team made the playoffs with a 6-4 prelim record. They are steadily improving and look to continue even further next year. In yet another all-PA matchup, Thurston and Moravian met in their first playoff game, where the former triumphed 445-110.

Friends Select with their second place trophy. NAQT’s President, R. Hentzel, is at left.

SSNCT showed top PA small schools can flex their muscles; now it is time to see how their larger counterparts can handle the pressure next month at HSNCT.

-Ben

Bulldog Buzzer Battle Wrap-Up (4/14/18)

In the first ever Bulldog Buzzer Battle at Berwick High School (stats can be found here),
fifteen teams from seven different NEPA schools challenged themselves on the PSACA
Philly Novice set by Bill Tressler. Newer schools were invited to bring all of their players,
regardless of grade or experience, while circuit stalwarts like Delaware Valley,
Wallenpaupack, and Berwick exposed their younger players to the introductory set. In a
fun-filled day, five of the newer teams found themselves battling in the final eight against
the top novice team from Delaware Valley and the two novices from Wallenpaupack.

In their first ever pyramidal tournament, eventual champion Hughesville A started off
their day with a tough loss to tournament runner-up Delaware Valley A, partially due to
their five negs. However, as they learned the ropes, the Spartans would spend the rest of
the AM rounds decreasing their negs and rattling off four consecutive victories. Powered
by Kade H.’s tournament-leading 17 powers, Hughesville upset Wallenpaupack A
early in the playoffs and stormed their way to the championship where they would get
redemption against Del Val A to take home the title.

Delaware Valley, playing all sophomores or younger, demonstrated that the future is
bright for the Warriors. Balanced scoring, the highest PPB in the tournament, and 22
powers from the A team—along with the B and C teams finishing as the top two teams in
the consolation bracket—showed that Coach DeVizia’s teams will be around for a while.
Similarly, Wallenpaupack’s A & B teams each battled their way to the semifinals with a
combined 11-6 record. Anthony I.’s 11 powers and 47 PPG were a bright spot for the
3rd place A team, while Pancho A.’s 34 PPG led the 4th place B team.

Another newcomer, Greater Nanticoke, had a nice entrance into the pyramidal world as
well. Their A team, lead by #4 overall scorer Noah K., racked up 18.53 PPB and
defeated their B team to claim fifth place. Rounding out the playoff bracket, Riverside
A—making their second appearance at pyramidal events and paced by the number two
scorer Jacob F.—defeated Hughesville B to claim 7th place.

In the consolation brackets, Montgomery made their second excursion to a Saturday
tournament and showed continued growth since their debut at the Big Lake Brawl i February. Both of their teams increased their PPB from their first event and Kyle B.
jumped from 13 PPG at the BLB to an impressive 48 PPG at this weekend’s event.
Riverside B got more experience in their second event as well, including a consolation-
bracket leading 13 PPB. Lastly, Berwick’s two house teams—including some very young
elementary/middle schoolers—got their first taste of a pyramidal tournament in their
home confines.

As for the event overall, first time host Berwick did a nice job keeping the event running
smoothly. It started right at the announced 9:15 time and rounds generally moved at a nice pace. The final bracket—which played 9 games—finished up right around 3:45. Coach Gunther did a nice job navigating a tough 15 team field by having three preliminary brackets and trying to minimize byes. If anything, more staffing in the future would make this event run even smoother. The playoffs mirrored the system you’d see at a wrestling event, where it became single elimination for the championship but all the others would be able to “play-back” into the remaining spots. This system, while not the traditional round robin finals, did work well for the newer teams to get experience and was easy for most teams to follow.

Overall, I hope we continue to see new hosts popping up around the state and that next
year’s iteration of the PSACA Set—which will be named Groundhog Day—continues the
growth of novice level events. I look forward to seeing how these newer teams continue to improve and hope to see them at more events next year.

— Guest Post by Coach Bern McCauley

Penn State Spring Academic Bowl Wrap-Up (3/17/18)

Last Saturday the 17th, fifteen teams were on hand to compete at Penn State University, leading into the late push of the last few tournaments of the regular season. Stats are here.

Camp Hill finished first place, which is the first time in a long while they have claimed a tournament victory, an overdue and well deserved honor. Lit and myth ace Sydney led the way with an impressive 17 powers and 61 points per game, and this was also a 30+ ppg event for Alex and Ben. Keep an eye on this school that always seems to improve as the year goes on going into SSNCT and nationals season. Otherwise, State College controlled their backyard, with their B, E, and A teams finishing 2nd-4th. The star of the show was the E team’s Pabitra, who in an amazing breakout performance scored 105 points a game with 20 powers sprinkled in. Though he has not played much, he could be an X factor for State College. On A, team captain Lily challenged herself by playing solo, and B meanwhile deployed a typical balanced attack.

5th and 6th places went to Huntingdon A and B. Their gradual improvement is really evident, and I have a feeling they are not done. Max had a few impressive buzzes in my room which have stuck. A group of teams from State College, Westmont Hilltop, and Kane rounded out the consolation games. Teddy from Kane A merits mention, deploying his history specialty to the tune of 67 ppg.

This was a small but fun event that brought a lot of good questions to a central Pennsylvania audience up for the learning. I had a lot of fun, and I am excited for these teams, many of them smaller schools, to continue to thrive.

-Ben

3rd-Annual Philadelphia City Championship Wrap-Up

Members of the Friends Select A team with their first-place trophy.

Eighteen teams from seven schools in Philadelphia gathered in Center City on Saturday for the 3rd-annual Philadelphia City Championships. Though some schools mysteriously dropped off the map this year or had conflicts on the day of the tournament, the schools who stuck with it expanded the depth of their programs and often brought many teams. With several middle school teams getting more experience as well, the future of quizbowl throughout Philadelphia looks reasonably bright.

Full stats are available here.

The top 5 individual scorers from the prelim rounds with their book prizes.

In the championship bracket, Friends Select continued their dominance of the city circuit with their top three teams taking the top three trophies. This wasn’t the result of just magical improvement by osmosis or base knowledge; core FSS A team members Jake and Richard have dramatically improved from their first experience on a NAQT IS-A set 2.5 years ago by hard work, studying and playing as much as possible along with their teammates. And members of the FSS B and FSS C teams have also steadily improved after pretty much every tournament they’ve played, with the B team in particular looking quite formidable. Even after graduation this year and the departure of founding coach Abbi Smith (whom we we all greatly miss, even if Delaware isn’t that far away), FSS looks well-stocked to continue on their march to dynasty status.

The Carver HSES A team took 4th after losing several close matches, including a tiebreak match with FSS C where they fell by only 5 points. The emergence of Aidan (44 PPG in the prelims), only a sophomore, as the team’s go-to scorer bodes well for their future, though the improvement of Mohammed (24 PPG throughout the day) was also key to Carver’s success this year. Science Leadership Academy’s A team came into this tournament with high hopes for a trophy, but despite Jack’s (64 PPG) all-star performance they lost their 2nd-leading scorer Gavin for the afternoon and fell to Carver A and the FSS teams in the playoff rounds. SLA A did, however, give FSS A their closest match of the day and returns an increasingly large group of talent. The championship bracket was rounded out by Bodine, whose team had an impressive 10 powers in the playoffs (only behind FSS A and B) and capped off their season with a solid win over Carver A. They’ll certainly be in the mix for the city championship next year with the complementary duo of Alex and Raquel at the helm.

The first consolation bracket ended in a three-way tie between Carver HSES B, Rush Arts A, and FSS D (a middle school team). Carver B had a well-balanced attack and boasted an impressively high PPB (higher than Carver A’s), but suffered a close loss to FSS D on one of the tougher packets of the tournament. FSS D (MS) had a fairly wild tournament with 5 matches decided by 50 points or less; these middle schoolers showed great poise playing high school teams on high school-level questions and Oscar (37 PPG) will be one to watch for next year. Rush A was paced by a strong 50 PPG from Matt and was the only team to play and defeat all 3 middle schools teams over the course of the tournament. Carver’s C team also saw several of its rotating cast of young members make improvements in their PPG. SLA B and SLA C rounded out the middle bracket with particularly strong performances from Naima (6 powers, 49 PPG) on SLA B and Stella (34 PPG) on SLA C.

The lower bracket saw the two Franklin Towne Charter teams continuing their semi-regular tradition of their B team narrowly besting their A team as both did well in their afternoon bracket. FSS E (MS) was another impressive middle school team and Furness made a welcome re-appearance on the circuit as well. Furness also notably improved their PPB from 4.4 in the morning to 8.9 in the afternoon and capped off their day with a two-game winning streak. Carver D (MS), in less than a month or two of existence, notched a victory over Franklin Towne B but lost themselves to Rush Arts B, who rounded out the bracket.

Members of the Bodine and Rush Arts A teams shake hands after their match.

It was another great day of academic competition for the students of Philadelphia and we hope that more schools will join (or re-join in the case of Central, Franklin Learning Center, Masterman, and Palumbo) the academic fun and challenge next year.

–Chris

Great Valley Quiz Bowl Tournament V Wrap-Up

This year’s annual slate of quizbowl action in Malvern, PA produced some of the most interesting results of the season. Stats for the AM and PM of both rounds are here, and final combined stats (with some corrections) are available as well.

Open Division

Wilmington Charter A captured the win in the Open Division.

Wilmington Charter A defeated a Manheim Township A that was down by one regular A-teamer in the finals, claiming the school’s first GVQBT title in an exciting 270-255 win. Charter may as well be honorary Pennsylvanians by this point, and the Delaware team put up a string of big wins before the close final. Waley’s 80 PPG led the Open Division in the morning to cut a path to the title for Charter. As for Manheim Township, the “rebuilding” team has once again flouted pre-season expectations and may have solidified their status as favorite for bronze in our end of season poll.

Third place went to similarly storied State College A, another team which continues to gainsay preseason pessimism and remains one of the state’s more solid all-around teams. Lily’s 76 points per game was second for the event. In one of the biggest surprise runs in PA quizbowl history, Downingtown STEM B took 4th, while their A team competed at a different tournament in New Jersey. No one expected such a strong, clutch performance out of relatively new players, and their memorable performance here may be a sign of great things to come in the future.

The rest of the playoff saw some regular Southeast PA high finishers from Henderson, Penn Manor, Friends Select, and Downingtown East. Friends Select in particular put up nice bonus conversion numbers, but unfortunately their final placement was hampered by setting a state record with nine negs in their match against STEM and several other cases of overly aggressive buzzing. Manheim Township B, Hempfield A and Hatboro-Horsham A also made the playoff brackets. It’s very nice to see the Hatters make the higher bracket, and though wins didn’t come yet in the afternoon, I think this squad from Montgomery County has shown steady improvement and nice potential for big success soon.

The consolation rounds featured their share of B teams from the above, plus a range of others. Lancaster Catholic ventured outside their home county and on to higher difficulty questions for the first time, and nice balance of contributing players netted them 4 wins for their efforts. Cedar Crest remained a dependable presence on the circuit, with many contributing scorers as always. Central Bucks East, similarly, continued their string of solid performances, able to hang with most teams and just a few points out of making the playoff brackets while putting up a particularly solid PPB of 16.12. We additionally saw good work from Moravian and Renaissance, who are preparing for SSNCT, and Science Leadership Academy, preparing for the Philadelphia City championships next month. Lakeland made the long drive down from NEPA, but without lead scorer Michael, wins were hard to come by; however, this experience should help fortify the rest of the team for the stretch run of the season and seek a top-10 ranking.

The return of two Chester County schools, Conestoga and West Chester East, to action on pyramidal questions was quite welcome. Though neither had the instant successes of their 2014-15 season that featured some top 5 tournament finishes, they both showed that they could handle the material. With more appearances, both could join the troop of national-caliber Chester County quizbowl teams at HSNCT in the near future.

Novice Division

Radnor High School took home the top prize in Novice at their very first pyramidal quizbowl event.

Radnor, playing in their first non-DelCo Hi-Q tournament, warmed up quickly to quizbowl and after dropping an early prelim match stormed back to win the tournament with an undefeated playoff run that featured a clutch 260-250 win over one of the mighty Manheim teams. Radnor faced a game State College B in the finals but ended SC B’s winning streak with a 305-245 win. Just as Haverford HS did well at GVQBT last year, so did Radnor this year and we hope to see more Delaware County schools at quizbowl events in the future.

Manheim Township D won third place over another new-to-quizbowl team, Conrad Weiser from Berks County. Township D, containing the core of MT’s team for probably the next 4 years, was dominant all day and took 3rd in very convincing fashion. Conrad Weiser though was extremely impressive in their debut, with excellent buzzer speed that made up for a few gaps in their bonus knowledge. We would again love to see more Berks Academic Challenge teams at our tournaments.

Both Hempfield B and new to-weekend-quizbowl Pine Grove A were competitive in their playoff matches and featured balanced scoring across the board. West Chester East B, led by Matt’s impressive 80 PPG, and Archbishop Ryan (who beat Radnor in the prelims but couldn’t get going in the playoffs) rounded out the playoff teams.

In the consolation matches, Carver B continued their trend of finishing higher than Carver A, albeit losing in their direct matchup. Rishith (81 PPG) seems like the new star for Wilmington Charter on a short-handed Charter B and Cedar Crest B continued the Cedar Crest tradition of solid, balanced scoring. Church Farm continued their successful debut season on the circuit though their A-team dropped a final close match to Phoenixville A 140-145. Phoenixville appears to have arisen like a certain bird and returned to the circuit after several years of absence; we would also love to see them back at more tournaments in the future.

Additional shout-outs here to Pine Grove’s B and C teams for all picking up a few wins in their first tournament, Hatboro-Horsham B for recovering from the morning with a strong 3-match winning streak to close, and PALCS for pulling a similar three-win close feat as well.

Commentary

The tournament was slowed at the start by 3 teams simply not showing up without warning. This is unacceptable; if you are going to drop a team, you absolutely must tell the tournament director well before the morning of the tournament. Or better yet, honor your commitment and play with teams of 2 or 3 players instead since missing teams mess up the schedule for all other teams.

Also, there seems to be a crisis among housewritten question sets (that is, those written by other schools rather than a central question-writing company like NAQT) in high school quizbowl. These sets are either trending closer to college sets (as BHSAT, used in the open division here, did), with 7 lines of 10 pt font for all the tossups and 8 lines (2 for the lead-in, 2 for each part) for the bonuses, or towards sloppiness and poor editing. The former sets are well-written, but can really bog a tournament down as the average time per match in the open division hovered around 40 minutes even with a corps of experienced moderators.

The latter sets, often cobbled together by groups of ambitious high school teams seeking to learn more clues for nationals, can be difficult to read and confusing to teams hearing them. The SOLON Novice set definitely suffered from this, with many grammatical errors, confusing wordings, lists rather than descriptions, some outright missing text, a lack of clear giveaways, and questionable difficulty choices (simply because the answerline is easy for instance doesn’t mean all the clues for it should be college+ level clues!). It was overall accessible to new teams, but could have used some additional editing, especially since it had been first used a long time ago.

-Ben and Chris

Swarthmore Novice Wrap-Up (1/27/18)

Bethlehem Catholic poses with their 1st place trophy after finishing 8-0

Final standings are shown in the playoff results here, with full statistics available here.

Bethlehem Catholic emerged from the Lehigh Valley with determination, clearing the field with an undefeated record. Led by Brendan, this well-rounded team was confident on the buzzer, putting up 46 powers and 450 points per game overall. Their impressive bonus conversion (23.56 PPB) indicates substantial depth as well; look for them to do well if they come back to more Saturday tournaments.

Archbishop Ryan with their 2nd place trophy

Second place went to Archbishop Ryan and Downingtown East. Archbishop Ryan’s top player was the appropriately named Ryan (a sophomore), who scored a tournament-leading 107 Points-Per-Game in the prelims. Following a 415-80 victory in their first match, they proceeded to score a very solid 19.18 PPB over the course of eight rounds. This enthusiastic new team should not be underestimated at future tournaments. D-East’s three-person team was powered by Maggie (75 PPG in the prelims) and Nikhil (42 PPG), with solid contributions from Simran. Both Ryan and D-East exercised impressive neg control, with both teams accumulating only 4 negs each during the entire event.

The rest of the playoff bracket included Friends Select C and two teams from Carver. FSS C put forth a team effort, with three players exceeding 23 PPG. Carver A notched a thrilling 270-265 win over Archbishop Ryan in the final match of the prelims, while Carver B upset their own A team in the last round of the day. Carver B also had 19.31 PPB, the third highest of the tournament. These talented young teams should be exciting to watch at the Philadelphia City Championship in March.

FSS D after the tournament

In the consolation bracket, Church Farm School, Archbishop Wood, and Bodine all finished with 4-4 records. After their debut at the Philly Fall Tournament in November, CFS made a welcome return with each player powering at least twice during the tournament. Saiif’s 52.50 PPG was fueled by several deep pockets of knowledge, especially on literature. Archbishop Wood had a balanced scoring attack with four players from the six-person team of ever-rotating substitutions putting up 20 PPG or above, and Bodine’s one-two punch of Alex and Raquel combined for a win against Carver B and 16.94 PPB overall. The rest of the consolation bracket was rounded out by FSS Middle, FSS D, and Carver C, all of whom showed solid potential. FSS Middle in particular came within 75 points of beating D-East in the prelims, and their 17.17 PPB suggests a strong pipeline for the FSS quizbowl program.

A match between D-East and FSS C

This tournament ran smoothly, finishing around 3:00 PM for most teams and providing a fun opportunity for less experienced players to compete on the SCOP Novice set. Out of the four schools in their first year of playing quizbowl, the two brand-new schools ended up taking the top two places. We hope to see all these schools back at more tournaments in the future!

-Jackie

Downingtown East 2018 Invitational (1/6/18) Wrap-Up

Downingtown STEM A poses after winning the varsity division 

42 teams gathered at Downingtown East HS on Jan. 6th for a chilly day of quizbowl to kick off the new year. Full statistics and results are available here.

Varsity/Experienced Division

In the varsity division, Downingtown STEM A took the crown against a resurgent Manheim Township A in the final, winning 320-260 in a winner-take-all single game. STEM, playing at full strength for the first time in a while, put up an incredible amount of powers over the course of the day (90 in total, averaging over 8 per match) that managed to make up for some occasional spurts of negs. The final match was in doubt up until the final few TUs as STEM connected on enough tossups to put MT away at the end. But Manheim Township definitely deserved to be in the final and has exceeded expectations coming out of winter break. Though not yet a national contender, they’ve certainly entered the PA conversation this year. Township A should no longer be doubted; they should be feared. The impressive performances by the other Township teams this tournament as well as their Middle School teams at previous competitions are a testament to how well-oiled this venerable PA quizbowl machine is.

Friends Select A finished in 3rd. This time, it seems Jake upped the studying ante and led the team in scoring for the first time this year. A three-headed attack that covers pretty much all of the canon (Richard may well be the 2nd-best science player in PA at this point) and gets solid 4th chair support is dangerous, but FSS A also led the tournament in negs as a team, which led to a few close shaves. FSS beat Henderson A in the 3rd-place match to take a trophy. Henderson, led by the always-solid Aravind and Vijay, played themselves into 4th place by knocking off Great Valley A in a match that’s going to haunt GV for awhile. Great Valley A remains fully capable of winning any game against any team in PA, but also seems unable to get over the hump when it comes to winning consistently. Henderson, meanwhile, continues their overachieving streak, and did so with only 3 players this time.

Delaware Valley A continues to put up solid numbers, also topping 21 PPB for the tournament. Their losses weren’t too bad–a FSS power-fest and STEM’s 2nd-closest game of the tournament–but this team seems to expect more than that. They’ll have to up their game to make the best-in-state convos, but they’re firmly within the upper tier of teams in the state. In a welcome repeat re-appearance on the circuit, Unionville had a nice tournament, knocking off FSS A and keeping it close in a couple of championship bracket games. Their PPB made a remarkable jump over the course of the tournament too, suggesting their quizbowl IQ may have increased over the course of the tournament and perhaps pointing to opportunities for future improvement if they keep playing (h/t to Silverman for pointing this out). Paced by Connor’s 70 PPG, Penn Manor A continued their steady play throughout the season to finish as the final HSNCT qualifier and round out the top 8 teams. Camp Hill A and Emmaus A both made the top brackets, but couldn’t make much noise once there. Manheim Township B kept it close against several top teams and put up a very solid 18.19 PPB while Great Valley C was able to spring an upset over Emmaus in the morning but faded the rest of the day against tough competition in the top bracket.

Nice to see Downingtown West back at a weekend tournament with a particularly strong performance by Miriam (62.5 PPG). Lancaster Mennonite continues to get stronger this season, centered around Jacob (54.38) and an improving group of other supporting staff. Moravian was also nice to see again on the circuit and Lawrenceville (NJ) crossed the Delaware and boldly ventured into the experienced bracket, where they collected a handful of wins for their A and B teams. Renaissance Academy also came out in force with three teams that again bravely challenged the experienced varsity teams.

One note to teams: it’s totally fine to have juniors and seniors compete in the novice division if they’re new to pyramidal quizbowl or don’t play often. Most TDs are likely open to discussing potential exceptions to any eligibility restrictions in the right cases.

Wallenpaupack B after winning the Novice division.

 Novice

The novice division was small but competitive. In the end, Wallepaupack B defeated Manheim Township D in the final, with FSS C claiming third. Wallenpaupack was led by Angela (45 PPG), with able assistance from the rest of her teammates. MT D got the prelim round win over Wallenpaupack, but lost two close games at the end to finish as the runner-up. It was good to see PALCS at a weekend tournament here, though they struggled a bit in the upper bracket finishing behind both Carver A and Bodine, who scored a nice win over the eventual champions. Penn Manor B finished atop the consolation bracket above a very young Lehigh Valley novice team and several other Carver squads.

Manheim Township Academic Challenge (12/16/17)

The largest pyramidal event in Pennsylvania history occurred last Saturday as 64 teams from all across the state–from Hawley to Philadelphia to Waynesboro to Bethlehem–arrived at Manheim Township High School to test their mettle. 34 teams competed in the Varsity division, while 30 teams contested the novice title. The atmosphere at the event was unlike anything ever seen in Pennsylvania before, with some 250 players on site and a superstar team of dozens of Pennsylvania’s best moderators. Due to its large size, both divisions ran using a card system (wherein teams are power-matched against each other based on similar records) in the preliminary rounds.

Full Stats are here.

A packed Manheim Township auditorium during the after-lunch meeting.

Varsity Division

Varsity’s top spot went to Lehigh Valley Academy A, where a solo Alex Schmidt fairly smashed most opposition en route to another trophy. It’s hard to say whether the A-set stats mean much for such an accomplished team, but LVA did average 26.35 points per bonus and north of 8 powers per match. Alex was easily the Varsity division’s leading scorer and his personal PPG of 178.9 was good enough for 3rd all-time on NAQT A-sets. There is nothing left at the non-nationals level for Alex to prove at this point. Second place went to Downingtown STEM A. Vishwa and Anish complement one another perfectly, and this broad, deep team got 8 powers a game en route to their runners-up finish. One very significant weakness with STEM that really showed up on A-sets was weak pop culture knowledge, which can be an issue on NAQT packets. Both LVA and STEM, however, took losses to a red-hot Friends Select A, who ended the morning rounds with the #1 Card in Varsity. Though they dropped two afternoon games to finish 5th, FSS proved they are a major threat to beat anyone by defeating the top two teams in close, hard fought matches. Richard’s rise from star (GPQB honorable mention last year) to superstar has been especially thrilling, and his 71 points per game led the way for a short-handed FSS A (missing Rudyard).

The fruitful cross border relationship between Ithaca High in New York and PA teams and events continued, as they drove all the way down and were rewarded for their commitment with a 3rd place finish. Great Valley A, undermanned this time by the absence of their science player Dan, took 4th behind one of incumbent GPQB Player of the Year Sam Scarfone’s best performances. Sam seemed particularly in his element on history and geography at the event. 6th place went to Hempfield A, one of the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s longtime powers who seems to have caught the pyramidal bug. After playing at Henderson last month, they followed up with a workmanlike tournament with some good wins, and received a berth to HSNCT. Downingtown East A finished 7th after another strong performance from Jackie, and Lancaster Mennonite A, perhaps the biggest surprise of the Varsity teams, came out with the last playoff berth, and a breakout performance by Jacob Cairns which included many fiery first line buzzes.

Hempfield B (left 4) and Lancaster Mennonite A pose for a photo after Mennonite’s 325-200 victory in round 1.

The consolation rounds were headed by two teams from Henderson. Unfortunately, they split their best players to hog HSNCT berths, which is considered against social decorum in Pennsylvania quizbowl and should be discouraged by TDs at future events. Aravind and Vijay continued to have strong seasons for the Henderson Warriors. Unionville finished 11th, and showed they have quite a bit of knowledge to display. Eric and Sophia cleared 40 points per game, and they worked a cool 21 points per bonus, which is very solid for a team still getting familiar with Saturday invitationals. Lakeland finished 13th, and looks to be PA’s best chance for a public school at SSNCT to do deep damage this year. Michael Goerlitz had another excellent run, getting 94 points per game, which was 4th at the event.

Perhaps most notable of all was the plethora of new teams Manheim Township’s coach, Missy Doll, got to the event through outreach. Many Lancaster and Lebanon area teams we don’t see much came out, and did quite well. The Varsity bracket featured three such teams: Red Lion, Lampeter-Strasburg, and Lancaster Catholic. Each came away with some nice wins, and could well turn into contenders soon. A special commendation goes to Red Lion’s Rick Schimek, who notched 68 points per game and was one of its top 10 scorers. I hope we see more from these talented teams very soon.

The field for Varsity also featured A teams from Huntingdon, Penn Manor, Cedar Crest, Moravian Academy, Emmaus, and Wallenpaupack continue their seasons to various levels of success. Bermudian Springs made their season debut as well, finishing near the middle of the pack. B and C teams from Friends Select, Great Valley, Hempfield and Emmaus also competed against this dense, tough field, with Friends Select B taking as high as tied for 11th.

Downingtown East A on their way to lunch. From L to R: Malaika, Zach, and Jackie.

Novice Division

In the Novice/JV division, Lebanon HS captured the championship in the course of gaining revenge on their only loss of the day to Manheim Township Middle B. Lebanon played an extremely clean tournament, with only 5 negs the entire day, and displayed deep knowledge on many bonuses en route to a solid 17+ PPB. Chase (57 PPG) and Courtney (39 PPG) led the way for Lebanon and I hope they’ll continue to play more weekend tournaments after making such a solid debut.

Novice division champions Lebanon High School with their trophy.

MT Middle B meanwhile played quite impressively to get to the finals in the first place, paced by Aizaaz’s 68 PPG and solid supporting performances from the rest of the team members. When combined with MT Middle A’s best players (particularly Deeya’s 61 PPG), MT Middle looks to be quite a formidable force at the Middle School level this year. The next few slots were taken up by some promising C teams, with both Emmaus C and Downingtown STEM C showcasing some of the future for Emmaus and STEM. Emmaus C finished with the #1 card after the prelims, but lost to MT Middle B in the playoffs to just finish outside the final. This tournament as a whole was a great example of the value of splitting divisions as it allowed newer players on these teams the opportunity to compete against players of similar experience levels and the card system kept the matches close–in the prelims, 3 teams had 1 point average margins of victory, suggesting that the system did a fairly good job matching teams up.

With so many other schools competing, a few scattered thoughts on various teams from the rest of the bracket:

• Eastern Lebanon County and Waynesboro made some rare but welcome appearances on the weekend tournament circuit here. In fact, judging by the high number of players on each school’s team (8 and 7, respectively), it seems as if they have plenty of interest for more teams at future tournaments. I would hope in the future that schools just enter two teams instead of one in these cases since it’s much more fun for players to be continually “in” a match and substitutions often seem to take up a lot of time.
• Lancaster Mennonite’s B team fared well and it’s neat to see a school that has expanded from a single-player powerhouse last year to a more complete program, at least in terms of competing with multiple solid teams at invitationals. Judging by this tournament, it’s pretty clear that most of the teams in PA are taking the program-establishment aspect to heart. This bodes well for creating lasting programs and for the health of the state of quizbowl as a whole.
• The #4 individual performance in this division came from Sebastian on Carver E & S B, who improved by 20 PPG in the prelims from the LVA tournament a month and a half ago. Lest anyone doubt that studying can pay off, it’s pretty cool to see such quick results. I’d be curious to know of other big increases from tournament to tournament for various players around the state in the future or even over the course of a year.
• Nathaniel Schmidt–the brother of Alex–finished with over 50 PPG for the tournament for Lehigh Valley Academy B.

-Ben And Chris

Quaker Fall Open III Wrap-Up

[Note: GPQB is trying something new with this wrap-up by conducting post-tournament interviews with some players and coaches to add to the story. All interviewees were selected by whomever was in the Quizbowl Discord from various teams at the time of writing, with an emphasis on Pennsylvania teams.]

Teams head out from the pre-tournament meeting to begin the first round of the Third Annual Quaker Fall Open.

Thirty-six teams from around the region gathered at the University of Pennsylvania for the 3rd Annual Quaker Fall Open. In the end, Downingtown STEM A came out on top over Great Valley A in the nationals division while Lakeland defeated Great Valley C to win the open division.

Full stats for both divisions are available here.

Nationals Division

Six of the top teams in the region competed in a double round-robin followed by a thrilling 2-game final series. In an incredibly close final four matches that all came down to the final tossup, Downingtown STEM beat Great Valley A, then lost to district rivals Downingtown East, then won two final games against Great Valley A in a disadvantaged final. STEM was missing their history/geography specialist Anish, but Vishwa’s deep science knowledge (he had some very impressive 30s on college-level topics) and solid all-around knowledge helped keep them competitive in every game. Rohan also helped out on the arts, employing a studying strategy of presenting to younger students on the team on various art topics (as inspired by Lily Zhang’s discussion of State College’s strategy).

Despite a tournament-leading 45 negs, the aggressive buzzing strategy paid off for STEM, who also led the tournament with 27 powers. According to Vishwa, this wasn’t a deliberate buzzing strategy; they just buzzed when they thought they knew it and Vishwa felt liberated to be aggressive on history to make up for Anish’ absence. In the final two matches, Vishwa shifted his strategy to avoid negs: “I was a lot less cavalier on science buzzes…I waited a bit more after I thought I knew it.”

Great Valley A (missing their normal #3 Mark) seemingly had the tournament in hand multiple times, but lost to a firing-on-all-cylinders Friends Select team in the final regular round to finish at 8-2 that forced a final with 7-3 D-STEM. GV A knew they’d had neg problems in the past and worked to correct that this time, particularly on a tough question set. Great Valley Coach McCauley said that his A team, “played much more patient–knowing lead-ins would be tougher–and bought in to cutting negs and not beating ourselves.”

Unfortunately, a few poorly-timed negs did cost them in the final few matches and they weren’t able to make up for that. It does seem like GV is working to improve on every question with a data-driven study strategy; Coach McCauley noted that, “We can take the data from this event and say ‘what caused this neg?’ or ‘we zeroed this bonus’ and then discuss who is going to own this topic for next time.” We’ll see if GV’s moneybuzz strategy can pay off at tournaments next semester.

Friends Select A finished in 3rd with a 6-4 record highlighted by a final-round win over Great Valley A. Like the other teams, FSS had practiced on tougher questions in the weeks leading up to this tournament to account for the tougher questions and different distribution. As Jake from FSS A explained, “the biggest difference for us was having to be a lot more conservative on our buzzes on EFT. We spent all of last week practicing waiting longer before buzzing than we would on [NAQT].” Friends Select rotated a fourth into their lineup, with Saras providing handshakes after good buzzes and some help on the bonuses, though the whole team missed some of the geography and current events questions that would be in a NAQT packet.

Making the drive up from Wilmington, Wilmington Charter A (DE) was competitive in all their matches and notched a win over STEM. The core trio of Waley, Sohum, and Sohan continued their solid performances from previous tournaments, though they were somewhat up-and-down depending on the match throughout the day. They’re certainly capable of knocking off any team in the area, but can play somewhat sloppily as well as brilliantly from match to match.

Downingtown East had a memorable match against STEM, beating their district rivals for the first time this academic year after an impressive 30 on the bonus after TU 19 by Malaika. According to D-East’s Jackie, “we were just more cautious and tried to keep it close the entire time, and we also got lucky that some of the topics that came up were ones that we knew decently well.” The rest of their matches put points on the board, but didn’t quite come as close. Their core trio also seems to be in the market for a solid 4th player and will likely make use of their rising B and C teams to provide one for future tournaments.

Middlesex County Academy (NJ), a very young team this year, ventured into the nationals division and adopted an aggressive strategy of buzzing which earned them the runner-up neg title award but probably made sense against the squads they were facing. We of course welcome NJ schools and would love to have more cross the river into PA.

EFT seemed like a solid set in terms of difficulty for most of these teams, who could consistently get TUs and 10 bonuses but also rewarded deep knowledge. Apart from a few instances of bonus inconsistency (which happen in every set) and a couple questionable answerlines, it was a fun set to see played and multiple players and coaches thought it a good learning experience for all.

Open Division

Though they lost several of their starters after last year’s top-20 finish at SSNCT, Lakeland appears to have reloaded largely in the form of Michael’s dominant all-around performance, putting up 127 PPG for the day and going undefeated, with their closest match a 55-point win. Lakeland will likely continue to contest for the best in the Northeast this year and could have a nice run at SSNCT if the rest of the team can develop around Michael’s strengths and weaknesses. Great Valley C made a nice run to the finals, grabbing a win over Manheim Township A and only losing to Wissahickon A and Lakeland. Manheim Township, missing much of their regular A and B teams, got some of their younger players more experience and finished just out of the Open championship match. Impressively, Manheim’s middle school team ended up with a higher PPB than Manheim B here and acquitted themselves well on a tough set of questions (more on this below). D-STEM B and Wilmington Charter B teams ended up in the hunt as well, with Noriyuki and Vedant (respectively) leading them. Science Leadership Academy A, after playing the morning as a duo, added Gavin in the afternoon to boost their PPB but had a rougher time on the TUs. Wissahickon A, after a strong morning, had a tougher afternoon with a couple of close losses and FSS B rode Matt and Silas’s scoring into the champ playoffs, but had a harder time once there.

In the consolation matches, Central Bucks East, sporting T-shirts with the image of an actual “SEABEAST,” warmed up nicely after the prelims and won the top consolation bracket. They seemed to get better as the day went on, moderating their negs and boosting their PPB from 9.1 in the morning to 16 in the afternoon. Great Valley D, after ending up in a tough prelim bracket, had a nice run in that bracket as well, followed by D-East B, FSS C, and Charter C. Keep an eye on Prasanna from Charter C and Jeremy from FSS C in the future. Carver A, rebuilding after losing 3/4 of their team last year, did relatively well on the TUs but struggled on the bonuses. Carver’s B team, featuring several new-to-quizbowl players, definitely caught on more in the playoffs and finished just behind D-East C in their consolation bracket. D-East C was cruising until a final round loss to Bodine, while Manheim’s C team, Wissahickon B, and Franklin Towne Charter A rounded out that bracket.

Although QFO has historically attracted a number of new-to-quizbowl schools, this year the only new team was Archbishop Wood, who quickly caught on after the prelims and doubled their PPB in the playoffs, ending with a hard-fought close game against Rush Fine Arts from Philly. Quizbowl in PA is for some reason lacking in diocesan schools, so it was good to see Wood in attendance and improving throughout the day. Wissahickon C emerged atop that final consolation bracket with some good TU prowess. SLA B and Carver C, both loaded with new-to-quizbowl-this-semester players, rounded out the field as all teams finished with a win.

Unfortunately, the Open division was played on the WHAQ II set which, after being easier-than-average last year (it had a negative Morlan stat correction, suggesting it was easier than the regular HS set) ended up being much harder this year, especially for less-experienced schools. Hopefully this and some other issues will be fixed before future mirrors. I commend all the teams for powering through the set and sticking it out.

Up next in two weeks: 64+ teams gather at Manheim Township. We’ll cover all the action from Lancaster then!

-Chris

Philly Fall Tournament Wrap-Up (11/11/17)

36 teams from across the Greater Philadelphia area converged on Center City, Philadelphia Saturday for the Philly Fall Invitational, jointly hosted by Friends Select School and Carver HSES at Friends Select’s campus.

Full stats are available here.

The winning duo from D-STEM A. Image via Twitter.

Open Division

Downingtown STEM A swept the field and finished with an unblemished 10-0 record, triumphing in an unusual 2 vs. 2 final against Wilmington Charter A. Propelled by Vishwa’s impressive 118 PPG (note that he actually averaged more points in the playoffs than in the prelims!) and Anish’s solid backing, STEM took on a tough (and somewhat uneven) Harvard Fall question set and was the only team in the field to finish above 20 PPB. Charter, playing somewhat shorthandedly as well, saw the continued emergence of Waley as a star player and excellent complement to A-team anchor Sohum. Great Valley A finished in 3rd, with a sterling performance from last year’s GPQB player-of-the-year Sam (26 powers to only 6 negs) counterbalanced by a consistent neg trend. GV averaged nearly 4 negs a match and barely broke even on the Power to Neg ratio. Downingtown East A finished in 4th, led as usual by Jackie’s strong generalist knowledge, and also picked up some solid assistance from Zach (28.9 PPG). Though they came close to knocking off Charter A, they had a harder time with their in-district rivals at STEM. Friends Select’s house team played with only half of their usual A-team (since FSS quite smartly chose to focus on prioritizing making sure the tournament ran efficiently by having their best readers read instead of play), allowing a rotating cast of A-team hopefuls to get some good experience. Henderson A made the top bracket as well, but isn’t quite ready yet to take back their place atop the Chester County hierarchy at this time.

Great Valley showcased tremendous depth throughout this tournament with their B, C, D, and E teams all finishing in the middle consolation bracket. With good coaching and a stable program in place for several years now, reinforcements from a burgeoning middle school program are helping to replenish and expand the ranks of GV teams this year and likely in future years. A young Penn Manor team continued its long-term expedition forth from the Lancaster-Lebanon League, highlighted with a 345-155 win over a balanced Downingtown STEM B team that came close to making the top bracket.

Wissahickon A, making their season debut, won the 2nd consolation bracket by a fairly large margin. Moorestown Friends, after a year’s hiatus from the circuit, returned and was led by a solid 40 PPG performance from Kayla. Science Leadership Academy A, playing up in the open division for the first time, had several close losses to GV B and Henderson A before finishing alongside Moorestown Friends (whom they beat in a close 200-195 match). Henderson’s enterprising B team, Carver’s house team, and Lancaster Mennonite (unusual but interesting to see several LL teams but not Manheim Township–who was down in Baltimore dogfighting with the DC circuit this weekend–at a tournament).

Clockwise from the top: Haverford, D-East, and Middlesex County A. Image via Instagram.

Novice Division

Though they lacked their signature red-and-gold bowties, Haverford High school made a big impression in only their 2nd-ever pyramidal tournament of the past few years by winning the novice division and displaying some outstandingly deep knowledge in doing so. Though they have some knowledge gaps due to their relative quizbowl inexperience, they can go on impressive runs of powers and 30s that show just what  some of the other Delaware County Hi-Q schools might be capable of if they chose to play quizbowl. Downingtown East B, paced by a balanced attack with all of its players averaging 29 PPG or higher, showed that the future of D-East should be bright. D-East B’s only losses were to Haverford and they had an impressive 200-point win over Wilmington Charter B in the prelims. Middlesex County A (NJ), another young team recovering from several major graduations last year, was able to knock off Haverford in the first round but then got upset by their B team in the playoffs and finished just out of the finals. Downingtown STEM C and Middlesex B were also both freshman-dominated teams who seemed happy to make the top playoff bracket but then had a harder time. Prathik (MCA B) and Abhsenk (MCA A) both topped 50 PPG, so with their powers combined MCA should be set for the future and we welcome more NJ teams to come over to our tournaments in PA.

The middle consolation bracket was won by Bodine, where star sophomore Alex (60 PPG) is now complemented by an impressive newcomer in Raquel (42 PPG). Though they could stand to work on adding some more depth (only 6 powers), Bodine was only a tossup cycle away in 2 games from breaking into the championship bracket. Church Farm School made their quizbowl debut in solid fashion, getting a tough introduction from the B teams of Charter and D-East before settling down to finish high in their consolation bracket. Wissahickon B capped off their day with a nice 255-250 victory over a balanced Charter C team. FSS B, also rotating through a cast of newer players, romped through the lower consolation bracket thanks to the 65+ PPG of Hannah, while the rest of the bracket was filled out by new players from the many of the other Philadelphia schools including Franklin Towne, Rush Fine Arts, and even more of Science Leadership Academy, many of whose players were making their quizbowl debuts.

Fortunately for the novice players, the Philadelphia Cheesesteak set (written by veteran quizbowl coach and writer Bill Tressler) was very accessible, particularly on the tossups. The tossups were designed around being covertable but still had challenging lead-ins, and there were a number of clues that tried to tie in current events and recent pop culture. There were some list-like clues and a few pronoun/plural issues, but most of those have been marked to get corrected and didn’t detract from the overall accessibility of the set at all. I would highly encourage other schools interested in a set that I felt was slightly harder than SCOP Novice on the bonuses but easier than NAQT IS-A sets on the tossups to use it (and its future sequels!) in your area.

-Chris