Possibly our hardest week of the season

Going into week 2, we were entering possibly our hardest week of the season. Part of it we were quizzing on 3 chapters and a bit of a 4th chapter. Half of the material was on 1 Corinthians 7, which had a lot of situational people (like "the man who was a slave before he was called" or "the woman whose husband died" for example). But probably the biggest reason was we had 3 back to back matches. It was take endurance to get through something like that.

The quiz team met at Bonnie Beam's house for practice at 2 PM...well, most of the quiz team. Kristy and Denise were at a bridal shower. We waited a little bit for them by doing a crossword with the keywords in it. It was interesting as we discussed how to spell "puffs" (compared to "poofs"), "physically" and "trivial." We read the material and discussed how to distinguish the lists. I had them practice pronoucing idolaters because some of them were saying "idol-laters" instead of "i-dol-a-ters." Still waiting for Densie and Kristy, I didn't want to begin new questions, so the 4 quizzers did a match going over the questions we missed Wednesday, with 4 question quiz outs. Justin quizzed out on this match. Running short on time, we did a match of new material. Both Meredith and Joy quizzed out on this match of brand new questions! During this match, Kristy and Denise arrived. We put them back into the matches and went back to 3 question quiz outs. In the first, Denise, Joy and Justin quizzed out by question 12, and they were all one the same team! That looked good. The next match not som much. The team of Denise, Joy and Justin errored 6 times, and the team of Kristy, Amanda and Meredith only got 2 of those bonuses right. Those 2 bonuses were the only questions they got. With not enough time for another match, we did one set of round questions, and then had dinner. The Beams cooked us a wonderful dinner of Meatball Sandwiches.

We arrived at Petra around 6:05 PM. The girls had a lot of friends from there so they were scattered about talking to friends. In the meantime, I got us seats in the sanctuary, front and center. Andrew Jensen led the worship team and the whole sanctuary in worship. Then there was announcements, a mini-devotional, and then we were off. The quizzers stayed in the sanctuary to watch Grace & Truth the first round and Hope of the Nations the second round. I went scouting, watching Maple Grove 3 the first round and Ridgeview 1 the second round. I was hearing a lot of questions with the keywords I was using, so I thought that this might be easier for us than last week. Some of the quizzers thought so too. Round 3 came up and we headed to the classroom for our match.

In round 3, we quizzed against Strasburg 2. Travis from Strasburg 2 started off the match was 2 right buzz-ins, putting us behind 20-o right of the bat. On his 3rd question, he errored, giving us a chance for points, but the bonus was dropped on our side. Luckily Denise help pick up the team by answering 3 consecutive questions correctly for a quiz out. That shifted the gears of the match. Strasburg 2 struggled with errors, getting six errors, and losing 10 pooints. Conestoga was quick to pick up the bonuses. Joy got 2 consective answers correct for her first points! Conestoga won the match, 75 to 45.

From the Classroom, we had to run all the way to the opposite end of the church for our next match in the sanctuary lobby. Conestoga was on the left, and Ridgeview 1 on the right. This match was hard and hurt us. Ridgeview 1's best quizzer Shaun quizzed out by question 4. After question 4, Carrissa, possibly their second best quizzer, buzzed in twice in a row and got them both right. It was hard starting a match 55-0. Carissa would later on quiz out on question 10, another buzz in. Conestoga tried their best. Justin would go ahead and quiz out. The 5 point bonus from quizzing out would be soon negated by losing 5 points for our 5 errors on question 14. Conestoga lost that match, 40 to 80.

Once again, we were on the run to the opposite side of the church, as we quizzed in the church's cafe (it was literally a cafe) for our match against Maple Grove 3. I encouraged the team to forget about the last match, and to stay strong and sharp, and to endure. I even tried to change the seating up a bit. We started the first question down by 10, but then we answered the next 4 questions correctly, butting us up 40-10 a third the way through the match. Denise quizzed out on question 8. It got scary on question 11 when Maple Grove 3 was 1 away from team bonus, but instead they errored more, losing 5 points. Conestoga won the match, 85 to 45.

The good news is we were 2-1 for the night in terms of win-loss record. The bad news is that the quizzing standings go by points, and our average to 74 1/3 points per match. But combining the two, even if we won with low scores, the opponenents with won against scored even less than we did. So it will be interesting to see how the standings turn out. Looking ahead in the schedule, we seem to be going from possibly the hardest week, last Sunday, to the possibly the easiest week, with only 2 matches. Hopefully the material will be just as easier so it can give the team a confidence boost.