Quizmeet at Weaverland

 The Stony Brook quiz team quiz coach Graham Holcomb saw room for improvement. Some quizzers were not buzzing in on questions with keywords, while other quizzers would take too long to buzz in after the key word came out of the quizmaster's mouth, and yet others would buzz in on the key word but then forget why it's key (i.e. the correct answer). Some of them were afraid to take risks, which meant the other team would buzz in faster or miss the opportunity for points by allowing questions to go unanswered. Some would have good buzz ins and good answers in practice, yet when the exact same question (or something similar) would come in a real quiz match, they would not buzz in at all, and when they did, they got it incorrect. The Stony Brook quiz coach went into the Sunday afternoon quiz practice with the intent of solving these problems. Of the 4 practice sets Graham wrote, 3 of them had brand-new questions, exposing the quiz team to more material. Those 3 sets of brand-new questions each had a situation question and a footnote question, so the quizzers would get use to both. The last set consisted of questions from verses missed on the Thursday practice, either completely missing both buzz in and bonus or missing just the buzz in but getting the bonus right. For this set, however, he reworded the question, so the quizzers could hear it in another way. With all 4 sets, the quiz coach put the keyword as early as possible in the quizzer (even the post where the questions sounded like Yoda wrote them!) to get the quizzer use to buzzing in early on the question. After the 4 practice sets concluded, and since the quiz team had a little time before the quiz team practiced some "buzzer drills." The quiz coach would read the material, and the quizzer would buzz in when they heard a key word and would say the key word to affirm the correct word. By golly, it worked! The delay between keyword and buzz seemed to shorten with every chapter read. The quiz team had to stop just short of the last chapter of keywords, for dinner was ready. Judy Heindel prepared for the quiz team barbecue sandwiches, bacon ranch French fries and peanut butter chocolate cake. Soon after finishing dinner, the time came to depart for Weaverland for the quizmeet. Stony Brook arrived with a little time to spare, so their quiz coach went down the list of keywords to see how much the quizzer could recall from around it. After a very folk-y worship with a little country twang (the worship team played both banjo and harmonica!), the quiz matches began.

The Stony Brook quiz team's first match of the night came in round 2 versus Calvary Monument 2. Elizabeth from Calvary Monument 2 began the match with a correct buzz-in. Olivia would match Elizabeth on the next question with her own correct buzz-in, tying the score up at 10. Then Elizabeth of Calvary Monument 2 would buzz-in again, but this time, it resulted in an error. Unfortunately, Lauren could not follow though with the bonus. On question 4, this time Calvary Monument 2's Chloe would buzz-in and answer right. Again, Olivia would come through for Stony Brook, following up with her own-right buzz-in, typing the score up again, this time at 20 points apiece. From this point, Calvary Monument 2 would take off. The next 4 questions consisted of buzz-ins from the Calvary Monument 2 side. Questions 6 & 7 came from Chloe, which gave Chloe a quiz out. Question 8 came from Aliya. Aliya did attempt to get two consecutive correct answers. Fortunately for Stony Brook, she did not, but unfortunately for Stony Brook, Kaylee could not pick up the bonus for points. Olivia, who had not gotten in for 4 questions, must have felt frustrated, for she buzzed in on question 10. Sadly, it rendered an error, and Calvary Monument 2 got the points off of a bonus. Then, on question 11, Tori from Calvary Monument 2 buzzed in and got team bonus, guaranteeing them the win. Stony Brook knew the standings went by points, however, so they kept trying for points. Kate got points on question 12. The quizmaster asked, "Who have become a byword of cursing..." and Kate buzzed in at the right time because both "byword" and "cursing" were key words, as mentioned at practice!" Kate immediately remembered "the house of judah..." but she needed some time to think "house of Israel" and get it right. Question 13 almost went unanswered, due to the question word getting lost in the question, but Kaylee tried. Kaylee may have gotten it wrong, but the bonus went to a Calvary Monument 2 quizzers who couldn't figure out what the question asked either. On question 15, Aliya of Calvary Monument 2 buzzed in, and she answered incorrectly. The bonus went to Olivia, and she got it right, giving herself a quiz out on the last question! Stony Brook may have lost 45-105, but the team at least felt relieved that Olivia could earn her 12th quiz of the year before the match ended.

Stony Brook vs. Calvary Monument 2

Stony had back-to-back matches, this time versus Church of the brethren (they are the only Church of the brethren, so they can call themselves just that). The match started off slow. Jason from Church of the brethren had the first buzz in, but he got incorrect, and then the bonus went to Kaylee, who also got it wrong. Kate gave Stony Brook an early lead on question 2 with her own buzz in right. Then what happened the Stony Brook quiz coach Graham calls "the Nolan show" because Nolan of Church of the brethren buzzed in and answered 3 questions in a row correctly for a quiz out. Just like that, Church of the brethren had the lead, 35 to 10, a third the way through the match. During the timeout between questions 5 and 6, the Stony Brook quiz coach reminded the quiz team that the Nolan show was now over, and it was Stony Brook's time to swoop in and take over the match. Swoop in and take over is exactly what the team did! On question 6, Kate buzzed in on "Who solemnly assured..." (because she knew both "solemnly" and "assured" were key words) and answered correctly "the angel of the Lord." On question 7, Lauren buzzed in on "The pleasant land..." (because she knew "pleasant" was key) and gave the right answer of "was made desolate." While Jason from Church of the brethren would break Stony Brook's streak with his own correct buzz-in, Olivia, who had been oddly absent for the first half of the quizmatch, buzzed in and answered right on question 9. On question 10, the quizmaster asked, "The third chariot..." and answered "white horses" for 10 points , giving Stony Brook the lead once again. (Quick pause right here: Lauren got asked both questions on the Thursday practice, got both of them right for Thursday's practice, and now she recalled it for the Sunday quizmeet!) Olivia would get another buzz in right on question 11, bringing up Stony Brook's lead to now 60 to 45. At this point, however, Church of the brethren would do some catching up of their own. They would get the next 2 questions, scoring both times. With 2 questions left, Church of the brethren narrowly lead 65 to 60. At the time out, Graham did point out that Kaylee could get team bonus, but Lauren, Olivia and Kate could each get a quiz out, and all those options were good, so everybody should try to get it. On question 14, Nate from Church of the brethren buzzed it, and he answered incorrectly. The bonus went to Kaylee, and she got it wrong. On question 15, Jason of Church of the brethren buzzed in, and he got it wrong. Olivia gets the bonus, and she answers correctly. Yes, Olivia quizzed out again question 15 (and she now has a baker's dozen of quiz outs for the year)! Just as important, that right answer also gave Stony Brook the win. The final score was: Stony Brook - 75, Church of the brethren - 65.

Stony Brook vs. Slate Hill

The quiz team's last match of the night was versus Slate Hill. This quizmatch is not worth going into detail. Slate Hill is number 1 in League A, averaging 122 points per match. It showed in this quizmatch. Slate Hill literally buzzed in on all 15 questions. 4/5 of those questions they answered correctly. From those correct answers, they got 4 quiz outs plus team bonus for a total of 160 points. Of the 1/5 of that match that Slate Hill did error, Stony Brook only picked up one of the bonuses, thanks to Olivia. As a matter of fact, up to this point, of the 18 quizmatches prior to this quizmatch, Olivia quizzed out 13 of them, and the 5 she did not quiz out, she scored at least 20 points. This match was her first match scoring under 20 points. As sad of a note that is to end this match on, it is somewhat a relief that Olivia walked away with 10 points instead of 0 points.

After 7 quizmeets and 19 quizmatches, Stony Brook has a win-loss record of 7-12, scored a total of  1,270 points, averaging 67 points per match. Despite our first and last match of the quizmeet not going the way the quiz team would have liked, the improvement the quiz coach wanted to see from the quiz team actually happened. Kate remembered why words were key and gave both good buzzes and good answers. Kaylee was not afraid to buzz in and take a guess at the end of the question. Lauren recalled what she heard in practiced and remembered it in the quizmatch for actual points (speaking of Lauren, congratulations to Lauren scoring the triple digits this year!). Olivia's delay in buzzing cut down with every passsing quiz match. Graham asked the quiz team to improve in those exact areas, and as their quiz coach, he could not ask for more. As a matter of fact, he looks forward to what more they can do as they continue improving, and so should you.