The LMS Tournament

I've been quizzing in the ACC Tournament for 8 years, so let me give you a little history listen. This year, the ACC Tournament was moved to Lancaster Mennonite School. I myself can't exactly say why, but I can guess that it has to do something between LBC becoming too expensive the LMS actually becoming big enough to host a tournament. Anyway, in my quizzer career, this is now the third location the ACC Tournament has been in. As you know from my previous blogs on the event, it use to be held at Lancaster Bible College (my college!), but that was only from 2004 to 2008. Before then, it use to be at Pequea Valley High School. Since it was, it was sometimes called the Pequea Tournament, named after the host building. Now after we stopped going to Pequea, it went back to mainly being called the ACC Tournament. (I never heard it be called the LBC Tournament.) But now we are at LMS. Hence, this blogs title. But enough of explaining about the title. Let me explain what happened at the tournament.

We have to go back to Saturday night. That's where it all starts. The Deitricks thought it was best that we have practice both Thursday night and Saturday night. Since Tim had work and Mike had a birthday party, it was just Alyssa, Bobby, Chelsea, and me. Since the Deitricks wrote 18 question sets, and there was only 4 of us, quiz outs were 5 questions. Still, some of us had problems quizzing out. We had more fun filling our columns with happy faces, mad faces, stars and tar pits than points. lol. We had our good matches, we had our bad matches. After practice and snack, we watch the Power of Ten, a short movie. And as Robert had asked me, I brought my wii so we could play Super Smash Brawl. Robert liked it a lot, but not so much for Alyssa. She didn't know any buttons, so she was just trying her best to play. She won one, with my help ;). But the rest I won. Still, it look like Robert enjoyed himself. We went to bed at 11:30 like Mrs. Deitrick wanted, but Robert and I listened to the material as we fell asleep.

Sunday morning we practiced again during the Sunday School hour. Tim and Mike were as late as usual. Once again, practices became more of getting tar pits, smileys and stars, but we also got a lot of points, too. We generally seemed to know our material. We stayed for all of worship, then left. We had lunch in the van as Mr. Deitrick asked us questions. We got there about 10 minutes before the festivities began.

Spring City has a habit of quizzing in the first set, which happens exactly at 1:oo. With only 10 minutes before quizzing, Mrs. Deitrick quickly did rounds of questions until time for the match. So after the quizmaster made announcements, we started out match against Hinkletown 3. Spring City owned in buzzing, as most of the questions were Spring City buzzing in. Yet Hinkletown 3 got a couple. The match started slow for Spring City, but we quickly caught up to our normal performance. I quizzed out. Spring City won 115 to 40.

Our next match was at 2:00, so I had the chance to watch our oppoents twice. First I watched Ridgeview 2 vs. Akron 2. Dave came to watch with me. I kept the score. The match was close in the beginning, all the way up to the end, when Akron 2 took the lead and took the win. I was pretty sure Spring City could win against both of them, for both teams were slow at buzzing in. Spring City's fast buzzing alone gave us an edge. The next match I watched was Hinkletown 3 vs. Strasburg 1. It was a slow match, as bonuses came with errors. A contest and rebuddal came out, but no time outs. Strasburg 1 was in the lead when I left. I had to leave in the middle of the match to get to my match on time. How embarassing!

But I made my 2:00 match on time. It was Ridgeview 2 vs. Spring City. A few more fans showed up for the match. This time, Spring City made sure it wasn't as slow as it was last time. Mike took the first question by buzzing in and getting it right. By question 3, we had 30 points, and it was quite possible to have team bonus by question 4. Robert was a little too slow, so we had to get in. Later on, we did get team bonus, and we also got 3 quiz outs. Dave felt so comfortable with our younger quizzers, he took Mike out when he quizzed out. Spring City won the match 145-20. Spring City was 2-0 in Group G.

We had a break set, then came our 2:40 match: Spring City vs. Livng Rock 2. The team was coached by the Bergs. Spring City has crossed the Bergs a few times in quizzing, especially during tournaments. This is the first time we quizzed against the Berg's daughter, Becca Berg. When 2:39 came around, as the team gathered to pray, we realized we were missing someone. It was Tim! No one could get ahold of Tim! Luckily Tim rolled around at exactly 2:40 so we could start our match. Anyway, the match started, and Spring City performed similar to our last match. We had 3 quiz outs, topped off with team bonus. Living Rock 2 wasn't as fortunate as Ridgeview 2 because they could only get 10 points. We had our strongest win of the day at the end of the match, winning 145 to 10. But still, the two teams came together to shake hands. Thank you, Living Rock 2, for being good sports about it...well, for the most part. I did hear a quizzer say, "Thank you for crucifiying us." While some might have been offended, I took it as a compliment. :). Spring City was now 3-0.

We had another break set. So I watch Hinkletown 3 vs. Petra 1 because I knew I had to scout Petra 1. Up to now, Petra 1 was 4-0. Petra 1's performance against Hinkletown 3 was similar to ours. They buzzed in a lot, giving few questions to Hinkletown 3. They got both quiz outs and team bonus. They won the match, scoring over 100 points. Petra 1 was now 5-0. Their last match was us. I knew that's what it would come down to.

Starting at 3:20, Spring City had back-to-back matches. The first match was against Akron 2. Spring City has faced Akron a couple times, especially in tournaments, and most of the time it is a win. While not as spectacular as the Ridgeview 2 or the Living Rock 2 match, Akron 2 was a great match for Spring City, even better than against Hinkletown 3. Spring City got team bonus and 2 quiz outs. We won the match 130-40. We shook hands with the other team, but couldn't stick around for much more, for we had to get to our next match in the other building.

Once we got to the other building, we went upstairs to our match against Strasburg 1. Now Strasburg 1 performed at the same level as Living Rock 2 and Akron 2 in the season, but from watching in the ACC Tournament, they knew what they were. They were about to prove that to us. Strasburg 1 contested twice, even as early as the first question! That sounds like something Tim would do (lol). Spring City errored a lot, coughing up a lot of bonuses. Some of them Strasburg 1 got, the others Strasburg missed. Their number 1 quizzer errored out, which helped me quiz out. It got close. Spring City racked up enough errors to start losing points. But after switching into conserative mode, Spring City did win 70 to 55. Spring City barely made it to 4-0.

After a break round, Spring City was now to face Petra 1. Both teams were 5-0 and in the playoffs. Now it was just a final battle for that no. 1 seed, which was the bye in the tournament. We prayed together with Petra 1 and then the match started. Petra 1 took an early lead in the match, 20-0. We tried to keep close to them, but we struggled. Not too many highlights of the match on Spring City's side. The biggest highlight would have to be my contest. I got for a bonus "Where was Abraham staying when Abraham said of Sarah, 'She is my sister'?" Right from the start, I thought it was a bad question, and planned to contest from the start. Until then, I babbled. "Egypt.....and Gerar.....and he also said it to Sarah before they left as in what to say wherever they go..." This babbling went on until time ran out. They judges briefly met together, and then came out to say it was wrong. I immediately contested the question. First I started out, "If I have found favor in the quizmasters eyes, may he let me contest the question?" (I always wanted to do that). After everyone laughed, the quizmaster said, "I think I have to let you" (which isn't true, the quizmaster can deny a contest, so yes, a quizzer must ask for permission to contest). So I explained to the quizmaster that it is a bad question because both in Egypt an Gerar Sarah is called Abraham's sister. Furthermore, Abraham tells Sarah before they left Haran that wherever they go, she should say that she is Abraham's sister, so really it was probably said more than those 2 places, and Egypt and Gerar are just two examples of that. Thus, I suggested the question be thrown out and a new one given. So the staff went back into huddle to talk it over. This huddle took longer, with a lot of page flipping. Finally the quizmaster came up. "Thank you for waiting," he started. "We're going to grant your contest, but not the way you are thinking. We're going to give you the bonus points. You're right, it does appear in different places. So we're going to accept multiple answers." I was happy and took it. So after 8 years of quizzing, I made my 3rd career, and won my first one. But in the big picture it didn't matter. Spring City gave enough bonuses that Petra 1 could win. The final score was Petra 1: 75, Spring City: 65. This is how Spring City finished it's round robin. That was Spring City's first ACC Tournament Round Robin loss since 2006. With that in mind...

Spring City finished the round robin 5-1. 5-1 got us 2nd place in Group G, which put us in the playoffs. The only difference from being in first place is that we had to quiz 1 more match. Now look at it in the bigger picture. This is the 5th time Spring City has been in the playoffs in the past 6 years. Like I said, this was Spring City's first loss in the ACC Tournament Round robin since 2006. So from 2007-2009 in the round robin, Spring City is 17-1. Pretty impressive. If you want to date it back to when I starting quizzing for Spring City, Spring City is 24-5 in the round robin. Spring City is not to be taken lightly in the ACC Tournament.

So mom was nice enough to get me a salad for dinner. Tim and Mike went out to eat. So the rest of the team ate together. When we were done eating, I went out to fill out my bracket. Then I spent a little alone time in room 200. I don't have the time or space to explain that; maybe I will explain it later. Then we all gathered in the Fine Arts center for the ceremonies. I usually am loud and riled up for these things, but not today. I feel like I was more just taking in the surrounding for one last time as a quizzer. Fred got up and thanked all who were involved in quizzzing. Then we saw the quizzing video, produced by Brian Harnish, which I saw myself in a few times. Then came the individual quizzing awards. This year they changed it to the top 66 (I wasn't a big fan of it. As I say, "When everyone is special, then nothing is special") One by one, I saw quizzers go up. I saw many friends go up, but only 1 teammate went up. Tim Moss finished in 39th with 510 points. If Tim chose to end his career after this season, he will have officially ended his career better than any of his brothers. As I saw the points people scored go up, I saw the placings go up. I knew I finished 1 short of perfect, but how many people were perfect. Then I heard, "2 people tied for 4th place with 615 points," I knew what to expect next. "From Spring City, Graham Holcomb!" And just as I declared I would at the beginning of the season, I went and went BYAH! for every quiz out I had, totalling 17. With one final BYAH! I went to Fred, received my award. If there was any order I was suppose to stand in, I violated it. Instead of standing with the perfect quizzers, I want to stand with my quizzing brother Tim.

So in the 8 years of my career, the last 6 years I finished in the top 100, the last 5 years I finished in the top 50, the last 4 years I finished in the top 20, the last 2 years I finished in the top 10, and this past season I finished in the top 5. In those 6 years I have 81 quiz outs (2004: 7, 2005: 12, 2006: 15, 2007: 14, 2008: 16, 2009: 17) and 3210 points. (2004: 370, 2005: 510, 2006: 585, 2007: 530, 2008: 600, 2009: 615).

After the ceremonies, we split to the rooms to our match. Spring City got to face Zion 1, 3rd place in their group. As a matter of fact, they had finished in a 3-way tie for 3rd at 3-3, and they won due to less errors. After praying, we were ready to start. Hannah Gehman from Zion 1 gave Spring City a scare when she quizzed out a third of the way through the quizmatch, and had taken a sizable lead in front of Spring City. I turned to Tim and said, "Let us both match her" and that's what we did. Both Tim and I quizzed out. Spring City beat Zion 1 by scoring twice as many points, 90 to 45. Once Hannah was out, all Zion picked up was 10 points.

There were no more break rounds, so Spring City was off to our next match. The seeded team we had to quiz against was Conestoga. If you don't know, Conestoga and Weaverland 2 tied for 4th place in League B in the season. This is important because the 4th seed is the seeded team. Because Weaverland 2 won against Conestoga in the season, they got 4th place and the seed. Not like it really mattered because Conestoga was put in the same group with Weaverland 2. But the irony is that the same thing happened in the group in the ACC Tournament as it did in the league in the season. Both teams took off, and it came down to their head-on match. This time, though, Conestoga was the winning team, so they got the bye. Now Spring City got their ahead of time, before the whole staff was ready, so the ready quizmaster gave us practice questions, which were really old quizzing questions from week 4 of the season. The way Spring City was doing, things were looking up. But that is what could have knocked us off our rocker. Spring City errored...a lot. Both Tim and I, Spring City's top 2 quizzers, erorred out. We were 6 errors alone. So naturally we lost points. It seemed any points we earned were quickly lost. Not only did we lose points, but we kindly handed bonuses which were converted into points for the other team. Needless to say we lost. This had to be the hardest match for me to error out and for my team to lose. Why? This match was my 250th career quizzing match. What a match no. 250 turned out to be. Instead of quizzing out, I errored out. Instead of winning, we lost, and now we were out of the tournament. Another time Tim was denied a trophy.

So for the rest of the night, I watched other teams quizzed. It was hard getting into the quizzing, knowing that we lost in such a horrible way. It was hard to pick a team to root for when you wanted to be that team. I saw Petra 3 win against E-Town 1 in the quarterfinals, and Conestoga win against Petra 3 in the semifinals. Then everyone crowded in the Fine Arts center for the final match of the ACC Tournament. On one side Conestoga had one their 3 matches to get to the final match, on the other side, Bowmansville 1 had done the same. Bowmansville 1 was rearing to go, and they showed it. By question 4, they were in the lead 40-0. It was hard for Conestoga to produce a comeback, and they just could not. After 15 questions, Bowmansville 1 was the victorious team, winning 100 to 40. So the ACC Tournament ended, and so did quizzing in PA. Bowmansville 1 was the ACC Tournament Champions, with Conestoga in 2nd place. Congratulations to both teams.