P-e-t-r-a Petra!

By a matter of 10 points, Spring City dropped from 4th to 5th. We needed to get back up to 4th for a good seeding in the ACC Tournament. Practice did not look too promising. Just like the last Thursday practice, I only quizzed out half my matches. I even errored out one. I didn't have a lot of time to practice before then considering I had 2 exams and I quiz I needed to study for in college. So I made up for the lost studying on Friday and Saturday.

I went to church with Spring City on Sunday. No crazy appearal this Sunday. Mike, Tim and I intentionally (and Dave unitentially) wore our Spring City 2007 shirts as I reminder to ourselves and our opponents that this 2008 team is just as powerful as the 2007 team. The only craziness is the quizzing buddy. I brought Stitch, the Stitch made famous by Bekah in 2006 when she tried endlessly to get its affection. I also got my secret sponser. Thank you secret sponser for the Garfield quizzing buddy, almond joys and the highlighters. They will be enjoyed. After church we got to have the lunch we were looking forward to all year: lunch at the Walleighs. It was the typical tacos, but they were good at always. Accompanying the quiz team was Bethany and her huband Steve, Seth and his adorable daughter Madison. Fun was had by all, but we had to get back to the church to get back to studying.

I was feeling more confident about myself after much studying Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. That was about to end in practice. Quizzing out for me became a struggle. I was having brain farts. Things I knew were leaving my mind. I couldn't recall anything. It was frustrating. I wanted to give up, but I knew giving up wouldn't help. So I just studied harder. Dinner was treated as a lunch as I warmed up my soup. We all ate in the kitchen. When we were done, we left for Petra.

When we arrived at Petra, I thought it looked bigger. Apparently they were just remodeling. Mike and Tim went off as usual to unknown locations, most likely the bathroom. Chelsea and Alyssa were roaming around the sanctuary and looking at it. Bobby and I went over keywords. We all got back together for praise and worship. Mike needed to be tuned for his singing. Annoucements told us where the rooms were, but didn't tell us any of the individual standings. Not even the perfect quizzers. I really think that's unnecesary. Shortly after Merv's joke, the quizzing was underway.

Just like last week, we had the last two matches. So we spent the rest of the time watching other matches, mainly future opponents. The first match I watched was Petra 6 vs. Maple Grove. I got to scorekeep. For the first 6 questions scorekeeping was boring because after 6 questions, the score was a tie at 10. Petra 6 was able to score 20 more points, but it lost 10 due to 6 errors. Maple Grove got 2 errors, both in review. Maple Grove won 55-20.

The next match I saw with Petra 2 vs. Conestoga 2. Conestoga was down to 3 quizzers. That meant when we would have a quizzer who would not get bonuses. It helped Petra 2. Petra 2 had quizzers buzzing in and quizzing out. They did get team bonus. One of the most imperssive questions was "With what did...." and Dave Jenson buzzing in, answering "Great pomp" and being correct. Petra 2 won with 120 points. I stayed in that same room to watch Petra 6 vs. Hinkletown 1, which Hinkletown 1 won. After that match, Dave drew the team together for some last-minute questions. We finished up, and watched the end of the match between Petra 4 vs. Weaverland 1 in the sanctuary. Weaverland 1 was the winner. We were now up.

In the second to last round, Spring City was taking on Petra 6 in the sanctuary with Jaime Detweiler as quizmaster. I sat in seat 2. I did not start the match as I wanted to. When I am in a quizmatch, the quizzeranium (the quizzing part of my brain) has 3 functions: first to know the right place to buzz in, second to come up with the right answer, and third is to connect the first two part. At my first buzz in, I had the good buzz. "What was Felix well acq..." but my brain farted and couldn't not come up with the right answer. When I made the second buzz in, and at seemed like the same thing was happening. My brain was farting and I was coming up blank with good buzzes. But the Holy Spirit came in and helped me. He did the connecting part and gave me the right answer scoring my first points. It was easier from there on. With two more questions, one being a situation question, I quizzed out. Tim also quizzed out. We came up short for team bonus. We did win 90-40 but we got a lot of errors. If I'm not mistaken, their points were all off of bonuses we gave them, but I could be wrong (Mrs. Deitrick, if you're reading this, my stats are off a bit. Please tell me what questions Tim and I quizzed out on for both matches.)

We had to hurry to our next match against Conestoga 2. The quizmaster was Bill Blank, which made me uneasy. He's a tougher On the first two questions Mike buzzed in and got both right. Unfortuneatly that the last we heard from him. I quizzed out, and so did Tim. Bobby also buzzed in and got it correct for team bonus! Bobby has now scored over 100 points! Welcome to the triple digits club, Bobby! Alyssa tried another buzz in on review, but this time her "tree" was going to help her. Spring City won 120-55.

So now I have 530 points, and I have now clinched a spot on the top 50 quizzers list. If I continue quizzing out, I will finish with 600 points, the highest yet. Spring City as a team has now scored a total of 1565 points this season, averaging 97.8125, rounded to 98. Our average went up 1 point! Let's see if it propels us back into 4th place.