Quizzing March Madness Part 1: ACC Tournament

Sorry I haven't wrote the results in a while. I had a lot of work to do for college. And I thought I should study quizzing for the tournament coming up (more about that later). Besides, this has given me time to think about what happened last Sunday.

Last week was the ACC Tournament. We practiced friday night, we practiced Saturday night, we practiced Sunday morning during Sunday school. We were determined in our practice. Yet we have some fun. The Spring City boiz stayed overnight, and played some Wii. And believe it or not, we went to bed at a decent time...1 in the morning. At church, we practiced, then we worshipped...well, most of us. Tim and Mike bought a pizza for Joelle so they could get Rit's Water Ice from her. Well, we were ready to leave to leave, and they weren't there yet. Mrs. Deitrick was about to kill both of them! So when they got back, Mrs. Detrick had and had a "talk" with them. And while she was having the talk with them, Chelsea, Alyssa, Bobby and I watched ironically as the pizza blew off the car top, came out of the box, and fell face down on the concrete. Well, Mike and Tim did what 2 smooth guys would do: dust it off and put it back in the box. It was a good laugh afterward. We arrived at Lancaster Bible College at noon. Being a student there, I bought my teammates and coaches lunch (and later on dinner). After eating a little studying, we went right to our 1:00 match.

Our first match was the first of the day at 1:00. We quizzed against Byerland. It was ironic that we were opening our ACC Tournament the same way we opened out season: quizzing against Byerland. there were a lot of things that happened the same in both matches. Charise Garber quizzed out early. After that, not much happened on Byerland's side. Then a lot of this happened different, and it was all on our side. We got a lot of errors, so many we lost points. Tim errored out. The suprising thing was Byerland was not picking up the bonuses we were giving them. If they did, they would have taken a clear lead and won. It was close. It came down to the last question. We were losing 45-55. Any Spring City quizzer getting it right and tie the match up, but if I could quiz out, we would win. The 15th question started, "Whose court..." and I buzzed in. I paused to think about it, and went with the first thing that came to my mind that seemed the most reasonable: "Caesar's court." I was right! We barely won against Byerland 60-55. Sloppy. Spirng City was up 1-0.

Our second match was 2:15 vs. Timberline. A rookie team who finished low in the ACC Tournament, we thought this match should be easy. With Fred as quizmaster, it wasn't as easy as we were hoping. I did the worst thing I could ever do: error out. I failed my team by killing a seat and not quizzing out. I'm embarrassed that I have to tell you this. I'm better than this. My team expects more out of me. I am the one who is suppose to set an example. That was a bad example. Luckily, my team was able to turn around my mistake and win 100-45. Another sloppy match. Spring City was up 2-0.

We had a back-to-back match. We quickly hurried to Sebastian to have a match against Petra 3. Coached by Jim Good, all the Petras give us a run. Petra 3 did. I was able to quiz out this on, including a question where I had to babble for the whole 30 seconds about Eutychus. But we went back to Tim erroring out. Our errors added up and we started losing points. Petra 3 was catching up, and they did good catching up, but they didn't catch up fully and at the end of the 15 regulations questions, we tied at 90 points. We had a timeout and we reminded our quizzers they couldn't error because we'd lose points. With myself quizzed out, and Tim errored out, we had to trust in the other quizzers because the top 2 were out. Question 16 Mike gets right and takes a 15 point lead 105-90. Question 17 Petra 3 gets right for ten points, keeping our lead to 5: 105-100. Question 18 the question was "Where was Mnasion from?" The whole question got out and since nobody else buzzed in, Chelsea buzzed in and tried. She picked the wrong place and errored, losing up 5 points. The bonus went to Petra 3. If they got it right, they would win. that was the longest 30 seconds I have felt in my life, but no answer came out. The scored was tied at 100, and we were going into a sudden death question. Question 19, question. "Who were rounded up.." Bobby buzzed. He answered, "Some bad characters." He was right! Bobby quizzed out and won the match for us! We were so happy for Bobby. We hoped that it would never come down to that close again. Spring City was up 3-0, and first place in our group.

We had a rest period and then went to our 4th match at 3:15 vs. Paradise 2. We lost to them in the season, and I thought this would be one of our hardest matches. In fact, this match was one of our best. We errored a lot as usual, but we scored 110 points, the most we scored all day in a regulation length match. We won 110-35. Spring City was still an undefeated 4-0. We couldn't stay too long. Our 5th match was at 3:35, another back-to-back match. It was against Bowmansville 1. We faced a Bowmansville last year in the ACC Tournament and won. I didn't do to well this match either. There was 2 situation questions. The first one I was beaten on because the Bowmansville quizzer buzzed in on "Who said this and..." and I wasn't lined up for the bonus. The second situation I did get in on, and I had a good buzz, but I suffered from a brain fart and couldn't bring up a right answer. The bonus was easily picked up. I also got a second question wrong that I was pretty sure I was right. Then this one question began "How many days..." Of course there are many days in the text. Since my roommate Eric was there, I decided to answer him. From the Strong Bad e-mail #186 called "Environment", I answered in my best Strong Sad voice, "3 days." Suprisingly, I got it right. and I did quiz out. We won 90-65. We had taken a 5-0 lead for first place. With our upcoming opponent Akron 4 being 0-5, and all the other teams having lost 1 to us, we had clinched 1st place in Group H. We were going to the playoffs. We still did do our best against Akron 1. It was sloppy, and almost as bad as we did against them in the season, but we won 80-30. Spring City went undefeated in Group H 6-0. Sadly, we had errored 30 times in 6 matches.

The afternoon round robin and evening playoffs were separated by dinner. We had dinner in the cafeteria, bought by me. We tried to study, but we were too distracted by other things and the excitement of making the playoffs. Before the playoffs were to begin, everyone met in the chapel for what we had been waiting for: the quizzing video and the announcement of the Top 60 Bible Quizzers List. The movie was awesome. Click on this sentence to see it. I made a few appearances in it. Just look for the orange, and it's me :). The best one was at the end, where you can see my going "BYAH!" at the end, even though you can't hear it. Then they started with the Top 60 Bible Quizzers List. As they started, they started with low points, and I felt good that I was going to finish high, and my hopes that I would be in the top5 rose. But as we got closer to my position, I realized Iwasn't going to finish that high. Tim finished in 29th place with 530 points. I finished 8th place with 600 points. It wasn't the top 5, but I set personal high records. This was the highest number of points, highest number of quizouts, and highest placing ever. But it didn't feel too special. I was 1 of 6 to finish 8th place. When 6 people are 8th place, 8th place isn't that big. Spring City had 2 top 60 quizzers (later stats would show Michael Schwager finished 85th place with 350 points, meaning Spring City has 3 Top 100 quizzers). The year ended with 3 perfect quizzers, one of them being Andrew Weiler, who is perfect for his third year in a row, and he's only quizzed for 3 years!

Then we were off to playoffs. We had to wait a match before we got to ours, so the match we watched was Petra 1 vs. Gehman. Since Petra 1 won the season, it looked like a shoe-in for them. Man, was I wrong. Gehman looked like they were the season champions the way they quizzed. The one quizzer looked like he was an Ohio quizzer. Gehman won and was moving on to the next round. Now was our match against Rivercorner. It was a close one, but midway through the match we came from behind and took the lead. The lead was so far ahead that we had despite them scoring on the last question, we still won 65-55.

The next playoff match was Spring City vs. Petra 2. Last time we quizzed them, we won 120-70. Petra 2 took the lead early in the match. We tried to catch up but when we did, they would just take the lead again. I got one situation right, but the second one I didn't because I said "apostles" when it should have been "elders". Petra 2 quizzer Dave Jenson said the same thing, and even contested he was right, and I rebuddled that I was right, but nothing happened, nobody got the points. At the end of question 13, we called timeout. I had 1 buzz in right and 2 errors. Tim had 2 right. We were one away from team bonus and Tim was one away from a quiz out. We needed both the team bonus and a quiz out. I shoulda been pulled, but I didn't think of it. Question 14 went to Petra 2 and they got it right. It was too late. We lost. Question 15 Tim buzzed in and got it right, and quizzed out, but it was no use. We were out.

Upset about being 1 match away from winning, I barely watched the semifinal match between New Danville and Petra 5. All I know was Petra 5 won. So the final match was Petra 5 vs. Petra 2 because Petra 2 beat Slate Hill 1 in their semifinal. Petra 5 took off and left their counterpart Petra 2 in the dust. Petra 5 beat Petra 2 115-55. Congrations to Petra 5 for the championship, congratualtions to Petra 2 for 2nd place, and congratulations for Slate Hill 1 and New Danville for the semifinals. Also, congratulations to the top 60 bible quizzers!