A painful visit caused suffering

This Sunday Conestoga went to Forest Hills for quizzing. I remember Forest Hills from going there a few times for church my freshman year of college. But that is not what made the visit painful. The material was painfully hard. Even the quizzers were crying out to go back to the previous week's material. We had 3 matches. Our first two matches were Slate Hill 2 and Timberline 2. Both teams were just 2 spots ahead of us, with only an average of 1 to 3 points higher. I usually encourage the quizzers to just score as many points as possible, but this week I encouraged them to win because if we win, that (obviously) means we've scored more points than the opposing team, giving us the oppurtunity to move up in the standings.

Quiz practice was at Bob and Cindy's. We opened in prayer and then announcements. We read through the material, and because we didn't have Bible study, I had a short devotional about what it meant to be ambassadors of Christ. Then we went into practice. Denise quizzed out all except one, which she errored out. Justin had a few quiz outs, and even Joy had one. But everyone had their fair share of errors, and even error outs, too. We even had 3 questions which totally went by with no one knowing the answer. In between we had a break by watching the gold medal hockey match between the United States and Canada. Cindy made a wonderful salsa speghetti pie dinner, and we were off to our matches at Forest Hills.

We had the opening match of the night. The bad news was it was in the sanctuary. The good news was it was in the sanctuary. The good news was that it wasn't against the home team. It was against Slate Hill 2. We started off with a strong start. Kristy surprised us all (and maybe even herself) with a correct buzz-in. The second question she would get the bonus correct. When she got another bonus on question 4, I thought she was going to quiz out, but she totally forgot the answer. Denise got the next one right though, putting us up 30-10 a third the way in the match. That was our best point in the match. Slate Hill 2 would score 3 question in row, then error (we couldn't get the bonus), the answer another two questions consecutively right. Slate Hill 2 would get 2 quiz outs, and Denise would close the match by quizzing out. We lost, 55-90.

After a match between, Conestoga was up against Timberline 2. Timberline 2 had just come off a hot win, getting team bonus at the last minute. We wanted that strong start like in our last match, but we got the opposiste. Denise errored on the first questions, and Jessie from Timberline 2 got both bonuses correct, starting Timberline 2 winning, 20-0. I had to call a time out. I wanted Denise to promise me she wouldn't error out and kill the seat, but she said she could promise nothing. That match wasn't any better for her because she would also miss two bonuses and not score at all. Joy redeemed the Beam side by quizzing out on question 10. But that quiz out seemed to be viritually nothing. Timberline got questions 4 to 7 consectively right, which resulted in two quiz outs. They wouldn't get anymore points until the last question, but it didn't help us. Conestoga faced another loss, 55 to 80, giving us a 4-match losing streak.

Then we waited until the last match, which was ours. Denise turned around from last match and started off by answering the first two questions correctly, both buzz-ins. She would buzz-in on question 4 and get it right, quizzing out. The match got exciting as we started scoring points. Both Justin and Joy got a buzz in correct and a bonus correct After question 14, either Justin or Joy could quiz out or Kristy or Amanda could buzz in and get us team. Unfortunately none of those happened. Fortunately, Conestoga won 85-30, breaking a 4-game losing streak.

Surprisingly our average went down only a bit. It went from 81 to 78. And with the 12th place much lower, with an average of 70, unless they had an excellent night, we should stay the same. Please pray for me as a coach. I sometimes come to loss on how to encourage my team. With the 2 losses and only 3 team bonuses all year, I feel like I have to re-evaluate my coaching. Whatever I'm doing must be not be working correctly.