This is how you end the first half of the season

On this Valentine's day, the quizzing material was 1 Corinthians 11:17 to 14:25, which includes 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter known for love. Fred said he didn't do that on purpose, but who knows. Quiz practice was at the Essicks. Because they had limited parking space due to the snow, we all drove up in Justin's car, and the Beams met us shortly later. As a Valentine's gift, I told the quizzers I would give them a piece of dark chocolate if they answered a good buzz-in correctly. Candy was flying everywhere in practice. Practice went ok. We got off 4 new matches, and did a match of missed questions. Amanda knew her lists, but seemed to be missing simple bonuses. Kristy seemed absent for many questions and her column would go blank for questions. Denise was quizzing out, and so was Joy. Justin would either quiz out or error out. We studied our best, had dinner, and left for quizzing.

We got to Neffsville at 6:15, just in time for worship to start. Right after worship, announcements, and joke. Then once 6:30 came around, it was time for Conestoga to quiz. Our first round match was against Petra 2. This match some of my quizzers were looking forward to because they had a friend on the team. Other quizzers were not looking forward to it because Petra 2 was the no. 1 team in our league. Again, for the holiday, I gave all the quizzers a duct tape rose to put with their nametag. Not really wanting to do it, but needing to, I started Amanda over Kristy because Kristy wasn't getting a lot and I needed someone who knew the lists in starting just in case the list questions came early. I told them to just do their best, score as much as they can, and rely on God's strength. The first half of the match was pretty close. Both Denise and Joy got 20 points. On Petra 2's side, they had their perfect quizzer quiz out. But by the end of question 9, it was only 45-40 Petra 2. On question 10, Denise errored, Nadine on Petra 2 got the bonus, and the match swung in Petra 2's favor for the rest of the match. Petra 2 buzzed in on every question, getting team bonus. On the last question, Kristen from Petra 2 errored, and Amanda got the bonus right. We lost 50 to 115, but we've score less than that twice before, and held Petra 2 from reaching their average.

We had a match break, but only one. We met Hope Community in the stuffy upstairs room. I told the quiz team to shake off the old match. This was a new match and we couldn't give up. Once again, it was close up to question 9. Hope Community was leading 55 to 40. Stephanie Hartman, Hope Community's top quizzer, quizzed out, and had another quizzer ready to quiz out. Conestoga was set up for team bonus with only 1 quizzer. After question 9, Conestoga took control of the match. Denise quizzed out on question 10. Kristy took her seat and on question 11 she buzzed in, answered correctly, and got team bonus. Question 12 Hope Community had a second quizzer quizzed out. The last 3 questions were review, and they were all Conestoga's. Kristy took question 13. Then, out of nowhere, Joy buzzed in on the last 2 questions, answered them both correctly, and got a quiz out, her first of her career! Way to go, Joy!

Conestoga had a two match break before their final match of the night. We all went down to the room we were going to quiz in, sat on the coaches, and just rested. During one of those matches, we watched Gehman get team bonus on question 4. Yikes! Before we knew it, it was time for us to quiz against Parkesburg 2. I went with the same lineup, seated differently according to what I saw in Parkesburg 2's other match. I told the quizzers to do what they did the last match. A lot of the questions I heard being asked I personally asked during the practices, so they knew it. I personally told Justin that because I knew he could quiz out with buzz-ins in practice, so he could do it in a real match. That talk must have been the encouragement he needed because he buzzed in on the first question and got it right! Denise gave me a scare when she errored on questions 3 and 4. I made her promise me that she wouldn't kill the seat by erroring out. On question 6, Alyssa quizzed out. During the timeout, I told the quizzers she was the only one we say action from, so now the rest of the match is ours. Sure enough, it was. Joy buzzed in twice in a row to get 20 points. Even Amanda buzzed in, but ended up erroring because she finished the question instead of giving the answer. Denise redeemed herself by getting the next to buzz ins correct and quizzing out. We were once again 1 question away from team bonus, with Kristy taking Denise's place. On question 12, Justin, who had been dorment since question 1, buzzed in and answered correctly. On question 13, Joy buzzed in, answered correctly, and quizzed out again! Here's a 2nd year quizzer (and may I mention it's an inconsecutive 2nd year) who got her first two career quiz outs, all with buzz-ins! With Joy sitting down, Meredith got up, increasing our chances for team bonus. So either Kristy, Amanda or Meredith could get team bonus, or Justin could get a quiz out. Technically, with two questions left, we could get both. On question 14, Justin buzzed answered correctly, and quizzed. This was his first quiz out since week 2, and only his third quiz out all season. On question 15, Kristy buzzed in, but couldn't think up an answer and errored. Well, neither could Parkesburg 2 because the bonus was dropped. Conestoga didn't get team bonus, but did score in the triple digits. Conestoga won 105 to 35.

At the end of the first half of the season, Conestoga has a win-loss-tie record of 6-4-1. Our average increased to 78.18. That was a great boost for our team. If we can start the second half of the season the way we ended the first half, we can really move up our average.