And in this way Spring City grew exceedingly prosperous

We're down to a bunch of "last"s. Last 2 chapters in Genesis, last week of the season, as well as the last match of the season. I had my last team read through of the material, my last Sunday afternoon practice and my last season performance. This one match was the big one. We were in 4th place, but by a mere 5 points. Our goal was to stay in 4th, so we can be seeded for the tournaments, but we had 2 team training closely behind us 5th place Timberline 1 was in 5th place, just 5 points short of tying us. 6th place E-Town 1 was only 30 points behind. We needed to score points. To make things more exciting, we were quizzing 2nd place Petra 2. Practice looked up. In our first practice match I quizzed out on the first 3 questions, all buzz ins. In our last match, we answered 15 questions without erroring. We seemed to know our stuff. But only our real quiz match could tell how well we were doing.

We got to LMH with a few spare minutes to go, but we decided to go right to the Fine Arts center and await the announcements. Of course this was a good chance for me to get some last minute studying in. At announcements, we were told that it was still a close competition for places 1-4 in League B and places 4-7 places in Leage A. But they said they planeed a 4-way fun match between the League B Quizzer All-stars, League B Coaches, League A Quizzer All-Stars. My jaw dropped when I heard this. I thought "oh my gosh, this could be me." Now let me tell you this was a dream be considered good enough to be in one of these fun matches. I gripped Robert's and Alyssa's hand as I heard the names announced. After the 3 perfect quizzers from League A, the final name is called out: "Graham Holcomb from Spring City." When my name was announced, there was a roar from both myself and my team came, loud enough to noticed by Merv. He said, "Well, I hope he gets at least one right." Now the catch was if a quizzer was called up, so was his coach. So Coach Dave had to quiz as well. Dave turned to me and said, "Thanks a lot!" lol. It was going to be fun. After announcements about the season playoffs, ACC Tournament, and the Invitational, it was time for the last 3 rounds on the regular season.

So the first match I went to go watch was Parkesburg vs. E-Town 1, since E-Town 1 was only 30 points behind us. I thought it was good to get an idea on how much to score, and keep that 30 point lead. E-Town 1 was in 6th place, while Parkesburg was in 15th. Now, as of week 6, both had 1 perfect quizzer. I would sit up with each one at the fun match. If they were perfect through week 7 too, they finished the year perfect because both of them quizzed out in the match. Jordan Keener's quiz out was the highlight of E-Town 1 because they errored more than they got right. 6 errors caused E-Town to lose 10 points. At the end of the match, E-Town 1 scored 45 points, allowing Parkesburg the win. With a 15th place team beating a 6th place team, I had confidence that 12th place Goods 1 could beat 5th place Timberline 1.

But before that, Spring City was up to quiz against Petra 2. We had a huge crowd following us, but a few were our fans. We had all the Petras (and their fans) cheering for their sister team Petra 2 to take 1st place in League A, Slate Hill 1 watching to see if Petra 2 would beat their score, and Timberline 1 watching us to see how much they needed to score. The match started. Tim got the first two right, led by me getting the next two right. With that, 4 questions went by, we were up 40 to 0, and Petra 2 called a time out. Tim and I know that better as the "oh crap" timeout. But then after that, Petra 2 got back in the match. It wasn't enough, though. Tim proceeded to quiz out, and so did I. I got my 17th quiz out of the season, an all-time high, and 615 points, another all-time high. But back to the match. Robert continued to get a buzz in, right making us one short of team bonus. Both Mulllins got a bonus. Chelsea couldn't get hers, but Alyssa got hers! We did win, 90 to 75, but the win wasn't important. What was important was that we scored 90 points, which now gave us and 95 point lead over Timberline 1. We would have liked to score more to give ourselves a bigger lead, but we would have to do with our 95 point lead, and await Timberline 1's match.

The whole team came to see Timberline's match against Goods 1. The Spring City boiz knew what we needed to do...cheer our hearts out for Goods 1. I'll admit, it was a bit ackward in the beginning, since Goods 1's starting lineup was all girls. But our loud cheering beat out the cheering of Timberline, which was a majority of the room. It was so loud we probably blew out a few eardrums. It was so loud that our coaches did not want to associate with us. Mike was so loud it caught Fred's attention! Well, I have to say our cheering had to do something with it because Goods 1 took off with an early quiz out. Goods 1 was the victorious team, scoring 115 points. This held back Timberline 1 to only 45 points. Good enough for us. Spring City had gotten in 4th place in their league for another consecutive year. As I left the room, I told Dave, "I'll see you on the stage."

So after the end of the regular season round robin, everyone started crowding back into the Fine Arts Center. Fred gathered together all the scoresheets, trying to make sense of tiebreakers. At the time, I got to talk to other quizzers, like Jeremiah from Zion and Mike from Slate Hill 1. Mike Good told me that Grace Point 2 was the only playoff team that one their last season match. Meanwhile, Fred showed a 4 minute clip that was about creation. As Genesis 1 text flashed on the screen, it showed the beauty of the creation, along with the music of "indescribable." It was beautiful. Like Fred said, it is hard to see how people stare at the vast array and complexity of the creation and say it is by chance. How foolish they are. So then the fun match was ready.

I walked up on the stage, happy and proud at the same time. I always envisioned myself being on that stage. usually it was as being in the season playoffs. But I also envisioned myself in the all-star match. Now it wasn't as an all-star of the whole ACC, but just in my league. I'll take it. I sat on the end on my team's table, so I was beween the Parkesburg coach and Luisa Miller, star quizzer from Slate Hill 1. Same rules were in effect pretty much (15 questions, 3 question quiz out and error out, etc.) but no contesting and no subbing. The material was Genesis 1-30. There would be only one bonus, and the team and quizzer who got it was random. Let me tell you, it was harder than it sounded. Buzzing was crazy. It got so crazy that I thought my buzzer wasn't working! Needless to say I was frustrated. Then again, I came to I was competing with 11 others....well, more like 7, the 7 other quizzers. The coaches have no idea to compete with our scores. To get an idea of how fast things were going, 13 of the 15 buzz ins were errors. Mainly, it was coming from the League A Quizzers side. Nothing was seen, not even bonuses, from League B (either quizzers of coaches) until the second half of the match. They didn't get a lot of points. We did see quiz outs. The Parkesburg coach was the first to quiz out. I got 2...errors. The first one was a situation question, but I found out later there were 3 possible options, and I picked the harder one, which is the wrong one. The second one was the last question of the match. I just wanted to get in, so I had to get a buzz in at least one more time. I went kamakazie green, and ended buzzing in after "what did Abraham..." With that little information, I tried, and failed. Luckily for coach Dave, my 2 errors both went to him as bonuses, and got them right! Makes up for erroring out on the fun match last year. While League B, quizzers and coaches were out of it, League A quizzers and coaches were closely tight in the race. But mainly consisting of bonuses, the coaches on League A won with 75 points. 2nd place was the League A quizzers with 55 points. In my dreams, I quizzed out in my all-star match. In reality, I errored twice. Still, it was pretty awesome.

Now the season playoffs were going to be between Slate Hill 1, Petra 2, Petra 3, and Grace Point 2. The two matches were League A 1st place Slate Hill 1 vs. League B 2nd place Petra 3 and League A 2nd place Petra 2 vs. League B 1st place Grace Point 2. I went to watch Grace Point 2 vs. Petra 2. The match started close with both team's top quizzer taking control of their team. But soon the rest of Petra 2 hopped into the match, getting Petra 2 team bonus. They also got 3 quiz outs. After a quick playoff match, Petra 2 won against Grace Point 2, 135 to 55.

Since the match I was watching got over so quickly, I went over to the Fine Arts Center, hoping to get in on the the end of the other playoff match between Slate Hill 1 and Petra 3. To my surprise, I walked on after a ruling was made on question 4. So I watched the rest of the match. This match wasn't as fast paced, as there wasa a lot of timeouts and contesting. Petra 3 took a small, early lead, and kept it to the best of their ability. That small lead was enough for the win. Petra 3 won, beating Slate Hill 1, with a score of 80 to 50. Not a high scoring match like Petra 2, but the win was all that was needed to get the win to go on to the final.

The final match was set between Petras. Petra 2 was going to take on Petra 3. Watching this match, I couldn't help but wonder how many times these 2 teams had quizzed against each other in practice, laughing and joking and having fun. Now it was serious. While Petra Fellowship was coming home with the championship, both teams quizzed for their own team. The match was a close one, from beginning to end. Each team got the chance to be the lead team. When all was said and done, Petra 2 won the final match, 70 to 65.

So that's how the season ended. Petra 2 is the champion team for 2008. In 2nd place is Petra 3. I want you to note that last year's champion team was Petra 1. So the traveling trophy would not leave Petra Fellowship, but go from team 1 to team 2, with team 3 in 2nd place. But let's not forget Slate Hill 1 or Grace Point 2. To be one of the top 4 team among 57 quiz teams is an amazing feat. Especially to Slate Hill 1, who after quizzing 18 matches avearged 117 points per match. As a matter of fact, Slate Hill 1 and Petra 2, both from League A, are the only two teams in all ACC to score over 2000 points this year. Congratulations to all.

But since I am a Spring City quizzer, and most of the readers of this are Spring City fans, let's draw back to the Spring City team. Read all the blogs/notes together. That is the tale of how Spring City grew exceedingly prospreous by going from 21st to 4th in a matter of 6 weeks. I don't have the time or room to explain what happened and how the Lord moved. I'll probably do that some other time. But those are the two things you need to know. The Lord moved in us, and something happened. For the second consecutive year, Spring City is in 4th and seeded in both tournaments. Spring City is also ranked 10th over all ACC quizzing teams. Like I said, I finished with 615 points and 17 quizouts, putting me in the top 10, and perhaps the top 5. Tim got a final quiz out, which should hopefully put him in the top 50. Now let's see what we can do with this entering the tournaments.