New job, new role, new team, new season

Just like any other quizzing eve, I had problems sleeping because I was so excited to start a new quizzing season. But new to any other quizzing season, I might have had problems sleeping because it had finally hit me that I was going up to sit in the seat, but had a permanant place on the bench, only getting up for timeouts. It humbled me knowing there was no individual score I could pedestal myself upon, but instead I had to trust my team for all points. So I prayed that God would make me a humble coach, never asking too much nor too little from my team. Then I was able to get some sleep.

During church service Sunday morning, Pastor Bob comissioned the quiz team. We all went up on the stage, and I introduced the quizzers on the quiz teams, which most of the congregation already knew, maybe better than I did. Pastor Bob prayed, as we walked off the stage, Bob commented on my orange suit: "it's amazing what color schemes the younger generation can get away with" :)

After church, the church served a soup and salad fellowship meal, so the quiz team was part of that. We started practice around 1:30 p.m. We started practice by listening to the material, and practiced buzzing in on keywords. We had two brand new practice matches with brand new questions. From when we started having quiz practice on Jan. 6, I had asked 2 questions from every verse in 1 Corinthians chapters 2-4, and 1 question for every verse in 1 Corinthians 1. We took a 15-minute break, in which we took our team picture. We had 3 more practice matches. Those 3 matches were going over questions we missed throughout previous practices. The first match of the 3 the quizzers started out strong, but ended weak. The 2nd of 3 they started out weak, but ended strong. The third of 3 was very weak, as there were14 errors in the whole match. We figured that we were growing tired due to empty stomaches so we called it quits and drove to our dinner hosts.

Harvey & Lillian Stoltzfus gladly hosted the team for dinner. They had this toy, which easily entertained Amanda. For dinner we had taco salad with hot sauce that reminded Amanda of chinese food. Of course, Amanda led in conversation. We thanked Harvey & Lillian and left for our quizmeet at 5:30.

We joined in the LMS Fine Arts center for the worship. After worship, they gave announcements about rulings, where even the staff sounded unsure about the material. Since we had to wait a match, I asked the quizzers whether they want to watch 2 experienced teams in the room we were facing, or if they wanted to watch their friends in Hope of the Nations instead. They were quick to respond "Hope of the Nations." So we watched Hope of the Nations face Media. For being all the way in Reading, Hope of the Nations brought a healthy cheering squad. Charleton from Media was quick to quiz out and take an early lead. But Hope of the Nations came back and won their first quizzing match! Way to go, Hope of the Nations!

We went down the hall to our first match against Neffsville. It was kind of ironic because I had spent several Sundays in my underclassmen years attending church at Neffsville. Neffsville, which was known for having multiple teams, only had one. In fact, since I began quizzing in 2002, I can always remember Neffsville having multiple teams. So it's been at least 9 years since Neffsville only had one team. The only one I recognized was Carissa Harnish, a long time quizzer from the Harnish dynasty. I had Kristy sit across from her. The first question Kristy buzzed in and errored, but Carissa was unable to pick up the bonus. It flip flopped the next question, as Carissa errored and missed the bonus. This is the only bonus we missed all night. By the third question, when Carissa errored, Kristy got the bonus. Well, Denise must have been tired of sitting out the first 3 questions because she buzzed in the next 3 questions, answered them all correctly, and quizzed out on question 6. Justin was next to quiz out, on question 12, with 3 right buzz ins and 1 error. Carissa from Neffsville recovered from her 2 early errors and quizzed out on buzz ins by question 13. Carissa was the only real action on that team. In the end, Conestoga won, 90 to 45.

We had to hurry for our next match back in the other building. We were facing Petra 4, coached by Andrew Jensen, someone who I have quizzed against a quizzer few years back. The match was always close, as no team took more than a 20 point lead. It got scary when Petra 4 was only 1 right buzz in away from team bonus with 4 questions left. Denise quizzed out on question 10, followed by Kristy quizzing out on question 14. But even more exciting was on question 13, when Amanda got her first points on the first night of her rookie year! On question 15, Petra 4 did not get the team bonus for the win, but did get a quiz out to tie the match at 80 points. As I shook coach Andrew's hand, I said to him "Isn't it scary when we become the adults?" :) And I left the music room, someone came out to me and asked, "Spring City, right?" and I couldn't help but laugh and say, "As a quizzed yes" :D

After a one-match break, we had our final quiz of the night against Gehman. My quizzers knew them as the team with the intelligable word of "yes", which annoyed them all. To my surprise, we had added a new fan, but an old teammate of mine: Tim Moss. He encouraged the "revolving door" strategy, but I told him to forget it :P . Gehman started with a correct buzz in from Paul, their top quizzer. Annoyed by his audible word "yes", Conestoga got 3 consecutive buzz ins correct from 3 different quizzers, going down the line from seat 1 to seat 3. I encouraged seat 4 Amanda to get us team bonus on question 5 with 4 consective buzz ins. Paul didn't want to see that, as he buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right for a quiz out. After 6 questions, Gehamn led by 5. This match was close for the next 5 questions. All but one were correct buzz ins, and the 1 error was from Brandon, but Amanda picked that one up. After question 11, Gehman took off. They got team bonus on question 12, and another quiz out on question 15. Denise, seeing a perfect season flash before her eyes, Denise buzzed in on question 15 and quizzed out. Conestoga scored 75 points, but lost to Gehman, who scored 110 points.

Next week is 1 Corinthians 5-8:30 at Petra. Come support the team!