Akron Mikeless

These quizzes were tests to Spring City. We only have 5 quizzers. We were one Mike Schwager short of a quiz team. Mike has given us team bonus and the occasional quiz out. Now we didn't have Mike. Could we perform up to average?

Obviously, to get near average we needed team bonus. So we drilled our quizzers as much as possible. We made sure they got the most questions in matches. They missed some, they got some (a lot of them they didn't know they knew). I was throwing Chelsea questions during break time. We still had fun during fun time. Christine and I raided Tim's car. We took out his hockey stuff and passed a ball around with the sticks. It became eventually a game of catch...and answering questions. We had ziti for dinner and was off to Akron.

Akron felt a little lonely. No Reading, no Zion. There really wasn't anyone we knew. The closest was the Hopewell teams. So we had to create our own fun. At least Brandon was there to have some fun with us. Not having Michael didn't stop us from wild cheering. We did the normal stuff, and Brandon gladly joined in.

Our first match was against the home team, Akron 3. So of course we were in the Sanctuary. Wesley Lapp was the quizmaster. He looks different without the facial hair. The match seem to begin still under the stress from doing bad last week. We sometimes became unsure of our answers. We got passed that. I quizzed out first, Tim quizzed out second. Since we only had 5 quizzers, we decided it was best for the second quizzer to quiz out would stay up. So Tim sat in his seat for the duration of the quizmatch, waiting for a bonus. It was up to the rest of the team. Christine got two, one was a buzz in. Christine was one away from quiz out. We were one rookie buzz in away from a team bonus. We had oppurtunities to get both, but alas, neither were successful. In the meantime, Akron was making a comeback with some quizouts. It was too late for Akron when they began the comeback. We won 90 to 80.

We had back to back matches in the middle of the quizmeet. So right away we had the match against Maple Grove 3. I'm pretty sure Maple Grove has never had 3 teams. So it was a new team, in a way. I think I recognized 1 or 2 of them from last year's Maple Grove 2. Tim quizzed out first, I quizzed out second and I sat up there and waited for the match to be over. Christine got one in. Then, with no notice, Bryan buzzed in and got it right! Bryan got us team bonus!! He also got 3 bonuses, 1 of which he got right. So it was pretty cool that Bryan got team bonus, and he was one away from a quizout. He tripled his score in one day. We did win with 110 points.

It was good for all of us. We were able to maintain point average. Tim and I were able to get back in the swing of quizzing out each quizmatch that we have. That also means we clinched the top 50 quizzers list. Bryan moved up to scoring 30 points in the year. Christine got 30 points in the day, moving herself to another year with triple digits in the score. The standings came out Monday. I didn't believe it, until I realized that the standings were only team standings. So once again, they've stopped the individual standings for the element of surprise. I don't like it. At least we can see where our team is. Still in 6th, still with 98 average. I've figured out that Petra 1 has clinched 1st place in the League. They have an average of 138, and even if they scored nothing in their last remaining match, their average would drop no lower than 131, far out of the reach for anyone in the League to get to. Slate Hill 1 is in second. They clinch it if they can score 140 points in the two regular season matches they have. With the opponenets they are facing, I think they will have no problem taking 2nd place. So it is Spring City's goal to get in 4th, so we can be the top team in our group in the ACC Tournament. This is how we do it: we need to score 130 points, averaging us for the year 100 points. Petra 5 must not score more than 75 points, and Good Shepherd 1 no more than 95 points. That will keep them below our average, thus getting us in 4th.

So we did good in Akron, even without Mike. We called him up and told him the result. We jokingly said that we didn't need him any longer. Truthfully, it is easier and less nervous to do it with Michael, but we now know we can do it without him, or if he or someone else screws up. That's reassuring for the future.