Neffsville. Nuff said.

As Dave told us on Thursday's practice, 4th place with a gift from God. Our average dropped 40 points, and we were as low as 11th place. God saw that we were deserving to be lifted us to a higher place, and we were. Now the key was to try to stare there. Could we? At practice on Thursday night, for the first time I did not quiz out on practice. Twice I couldn't get higher than 20 points. I obviously needed more studying.

I came to church on Sunday. My strategy beyond hard studying was the intimidate the oppenent by looking insane. So I dressed crazy. My pants were blue and orange. My shirt was green. All 3 clashed, like I couldn't dress myself. To add to that, I had one black sock and one white sock, one white shoe and one black/orange shoe. I wore Mardi Gras beads and to top it all off, I had a inflatable hat with a brain on it. My quizzing buddy was green cow with orange and purple spots that didn't want to be tickled. I looked crazy, but by practice time, I was ready.

Practice was frustrating. Depending on whose questions I got was how I did. When I got Dave questions, I knew them, but I couldn't get in. When I got Vicki questions, I got in, but I couldn't answer them. In fact, I errored out on one of her sets. She was grateful enough to let me until another another error, but instead I quizzed out. I needed more studying. We couldn't do much during free time because there was a baby shower at the church, so I took the time to stay in the room and study. Then came the ackward moment of the year. Apparently, the shower was for someone related to Chelsea in Alyssa Mullins. So here I am, dressed like an insane man, studying aloud (I study vocally because it sticks better), asking myself questions and answers. Suddenly Chelsea and Alyssa come in with some girl (whose age I'm still trying to guess) from the shower. Alyssa says, "This is Graham, the duct tape guy, but today he's just crazy." What are you suppose to say/do in that situation? All I could do was say hi and be nice. Luckily it didn't last too long, so I could feel less ackward and practice more. Since we couldn't have a normal dinner like usual because of the shower, we had pizza in our practice room. Then we went to Neffsville.

Neffsville is only about 3 miles away from my college, so we had a pretty good distance to go up. We got our usual rounds of questions. Even when we got there, we went through more questions. Again we switched name tags. I received Tim's. Tim and Mike decided to have fun and sit in the wheelchairs....after much arguing with Vicki. Our time was cut short as we ran into friends from Slate Hill 2. We went to worship and then went to go watch matches because we had the last two matches of the night.

The first match I watched was Neffsville 2 vs. Akron 1. The match was slow because a lot of the questions would get out. Neffsville did well and got team bonus, leading them for the win. That looked good for our team. The next match I watched was Petra 3 vs. Petra 5. I like a good in-church rivalry. Petra 5 was the favorite in 4th, and Petra 3 was in 12th. Petra 5 showed that they were higher as they brought forth a win. Next was E-Town 2 vs. Petra 2, so I could scout out Petra 2. They struggled in the beginning, yet by the end, Petra 2 won 85-50. Still, it wasn't up to their aveage. Coach Dave thought we needed more practice so he had us meet in the hall for more questions. After those questions, I realized I needed more questions myself. So for one more round, I went off to study myself. After going over questions one more time, I was ready.

We started the match against Akron 1 with me in seat 1. Spring City finally had a match with favorite quizmaster Jaime Detweiler. I quizzed out on question 5. Tim followed by quizzing out later, after getting 2 errors. In the process of trying to score points, Mike errored twice, yet he scored for us 20 points. By the end of question 14, we had 3 quizzers who could get team bonus and one who could quiz out. Yet instead we got a fifth error, causing us to lose 5 points. We won 85 to 55. It was a win, but it wasn't as strong as we wanted. In a points where the standings are measured by points, we needed points.

The back to back match that followed was against Petra 3. A 3rd place team vs. a 4th place team. It wasn't what we expected. We got the early jump in. I quizzed out by question 6, and Tim followed up the next question. Mike and Bobby got us team bonus! Then came review. One question started, "On what was Jesus..." and BZZT came from....Alyssa? Well, Alyssa thought, and so did everyone else on the team, including coaches. No one could come up with an answer. Then Alyssa questionally said "A tree?" out of no where. A pause. Quizmaster Jon Howe smiles and saind, "He did!" Well, you can just imagine how frantic everyone was shouting. We were so happy over 10 points that we confused all the Petra fans. We had to explain it was Alyssa's first points. Good job Alyssa! Way to go! Once again, we had 5 of our 6 quizzers buzz in for a correct answer. We beat the 3rd place team 120-70. After Petra 2 knocked us out of the Invitational, I think we are now even!

We won't home happy. All 6 of our quizzers have points. Bobby is 5 away from reaching 100 (and in his rookie year too!). I have scored 460 points, and am 10 away from clinching the top 50 Quizzers List. Unfortuneatly they stopped posting individual standings, so we can't show you this. They still post team standings. Our team average went up 1 average point. That 1 point, however, was not enough. Petra 4 had a good night and passed us by a matter of half an average point. So we fell back to 5th place. Still, we are rearing to go another week to get back into the top 4, and if we do extremely well, the top 2! Pray for us!