More details on the 2010 ACC Tournament

Let me take a step back. I told you about the Invitational, but didn't tell you about the ACC Tournament. If you went to the Conestoga Twitter page a week earlier, you would have seen that I was giving it a test run with the ACC Tournament resutls. So if you read that, you already know what happened. If not, enjoy this description of the matches.

First, I believe owing God thanks and praise that he made all things work out for this Saturday. The previous Wednesday evening my grandmother passed away, and I wasn't sure if I would make it back from Connecticut for the tournament. But I believe God recognized my needed leadership in the ministry I was serving, so He made it so that the viewing was Friday and the funeral was Saturday. I spent all Friday morning driving up to Connecticut from home and all Saturday evening driving from Connecticut back to LBC so I could be with my team in a big tournament. Thank you God for being faithful to the calling you gave me.

The team met together for the Sunday School hour for quiz practice, and joined together in worship for the church service. After church all the quizzers met together around the ping pong table for lunch. Sharon, Amanda's mom, brought meatballs for meatball subs, along with sides and deserts. We all ate in good time and left in good time, even though we were pulling it close. We got to Lancaster Mennonite School exactly 2 minutes before 1 p.m., when the tournament started. Luckily for us, our first match wasn't until 1:20 anyway. So we waited out for our match to come, reviewing some questions, some lists and some footnotes.

Conestoga was in Group E with 5 other teams. Therefore, we quizzed 5 matches in the afternoon's round robin with other teams in our group. The first team we were up against was Zion 2. In the season, we had faced Zion 2 and had a close loss. Zion 2 started off the match quickly, while Conestoga had a slow start. Zion 2 kept strong through the whole match, Conestoga struggled. Zion 2 had 3 quiz outs, while Justin was the onl one able to quiz out. Conestoga lost 65 to 105. We were 0-1 in Group H. The quiz team didn't feel too good about losing their first match. They needed to get outside into the beautiful weather and bask in the sun. In the meantime, I looked at the early standings.

At 2:00 Conestoga had their second match vs. Bowmansville 1. This match I started Amanda over Kristy. The match did start slow with Bowmansville 1 getting an error, and Denise not getting the bonus. But then things turned around. Amanda, who has been somewhat dormant buzzed in on question 2 and got it right! This was followed by Denise who got a buzz-in correct. Now Bowmansville responded with scoring 30 points, but that was followed by 2 errors, allowing Denise to quiz out on our side and open a seat for Kristy. Joy and Kristy joined in and got a buzz-in correct, getting us team bonus! Conestoga was the winner, 95 to 65. We were now 1-1.

With an hour until our next match, everyone enjoyed a longer break. Most of the Conestoga quizzers had a make-shift game of softball, using Meredith's long wooden name tag as the "bat." I watched a quiz match between Hope of the Nations and E-Town 1, and went back and forth between the standings to see how they were unfolding. For the most part, they unfolded to our benefit and we had much potential to entering the playoffs.

3:00 came around and so did our match against RiverCorner. The music room was fairly empty with no large crowd watching us. The first 2 questions Joy and Densie buzzed-in correctly, giving Conestoga a strong 20 point lead. Questions 4 and 5 slowed down the match. On question 3, Denises errored and Megan Lehman from RiverCorner couldn't pick up the bonus. Question 4 went by without anyone buzzing in. It was ok; it was areally long question with a really long answer. Megan may have rebounded by getting the next buzz-in correct, but then Conestoga took control of the next 4 questions. Amanda kept going on fire with question 6 a correct buzz-in. Densise got her second question right on question 7. Justin buzzed in answered correctly on question 8, getting us team bonus. Denise kept going with right answers and quizzed out on question 9, giving Conestoga a 75 point lead. RiverCorner answered 4 questions correctly, but it wasn't enough. Joy got the last question and finalized the match. Conestoga was the winner against RiverCorner, 95 to 55.

Since we had back-to-back matches, we had to run from the music room to the Rutt Building for our match against Living Rock 2. Still on fire from our last match, we were ready to go. Amanda was the most on fire because she was the one who opened the match with a correct buzz in. Just must've not wanted to be the last one for team bonus again because he got the second question a buzz in correct. After taking a 20 point lead, we then errored twice, which Living Rock picked up easily. Then Living Rock 2 got a buzz in correct, answering 3 correctly in a row. But Joy buzzed in correctly on question 6 and Kristy on question 8, giving team bonus. It got scary when Living Rock 2 got 3 buzz-ins correctly and was one away from team bonus. But they never got it. Isntead, Kristy quizzed out on question 15, winning Conestoga the match 95 to 75. Conestoga was now 3-1 in Group H.

Conestoga's final match in the round robin was against Goods 2. We had quizzed against Goods 2 in the season and won greatly. We hoped to repeat. For the last round robin match, I went back to starting Kristy over Amanda. Conestoga got the first 4 questions right. Denise started off question 1 with a right bonus, then got a right buzz-in on question 2. Joy interruptted Denise's streak by getting her own buzz-in correct. Denise got her quiz out on question 4, putting Amanda in. There was no team bonus this team, but Kristy got her second consecutive quiz out, also on question 15. Conestoga once again was the winner, with a score of 90 to 45. After losing the opening match, Conestoga went on a 4-match winning streak to finish 4-1 in the group. Since Zion 2 had gone undefeated in our group, Conestoga's 4-1 record put the team 2nd place in Group H. We were going to the playoffs.

Sharon once again was kind enough to bring pizza for the quiz team, and so we all enjoyed a pizza picnic outside in the nice weather. Then the quiz team went to get ice cream, but I went back to the standings to get more information on what was happening. In Group H, Zion 2 finished 1st, Conestoga finished 2nd and Bowmansville 1 in 3rd. All were going to the playoffs. Our opponent in the playoffs would be Strasburg 4, the third place team in Group B, with a 3-2 record. We had closed the season quizzing against Starsburg 4, and we won. We hope to win again. Some other things to notice: the combined Petra team records was 23-2. 3 Petra teams went 5-0 and 2 Petra teams went 4-1. 3 of 5 Petra teams were the champions of their group. Also, 7 of the 8 group champions were 5-0.

I had a quick coach's meeting to go for bus assignments. Conestoga didn't get the bus seating we would have wanted, but Fred made sure we would on the way back. The meeting got over in enough time for the quizzing movie. After the quizzing movie was the Top 50 Bible Quizzers List. We (at least I) cheered loudly and wildly for our quizzer on the Top 50 Quizzers List: Denise. Denise finished in 35th with 575 points. Then afterward the playoffs were ready to begin.

So came our playoff match against Starsburg 4. Same quizzers, same line-up. Denise opened the quizmatch with a correct buzz, and Joanna from Starsburg 4 responded on question 2 with a correct buzz-in. Conestoga took a heavy lead into the quiz match. 4/5 the way through the match, we were winning 80 to 30, thanks to Denise and Joy quizzing out. Things sounded set. But the 30 points Strasburg 4 got was 3 buzz-ins by 3 different quizzes. On question 13, Joanna from Strasburg 4 got another question correctly, putting her one away from a quiz out. So with 2 questions left, Strasburg 4 was one question away from a quiz out and one question away from a team bonus. On question 14, Strasburg 4 got that 4th quizzer to buzz in correctly for the team bonus. The score was now Conestoga - 80, Strasburg 4 - 70. I was sitting on the bench thinking, "Anybody but Joanna, anybody but Joanna..." because if no one got it right, Conestoga won, if anyone of the conestoga quizzers got it right, Conestoga won, if any Strasburg 4 quizzer but Joanna got it right, it would be a tie and there would be overtime, but if Joanna got it right, Strasburg 4 would win due the 5 extra points for the quiz out. The worse case scenario happened. Joanna buzzed in, answered correctly, quizzed out and won the match for her team. Strasburg 4 was the victorius team, 85 to 80. Strasburg 4 would go on, but Conestoga was knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. Our day was done.

With Conestoga done, the quizzers went home, but I stayed to see the rest. In the second round, Strasburg 4 would lose their next match against Petra 1. I watched Petra 2 beat Petra 5. In the quarterfinal round, there was a re-match of the semifinal season match between Petra 2 and Slate Hill 1. The match started out close, but Petra 2 took a good lead and the win this time. In the semifinals, Petra 2 won against Gehman and Petra 1 won over Weaverland 2. The final match was Petra 2 vs. Petra 1. This also started out close, but Petra 1 would be the victorious team, winning 85 to 50. So the 2010 ACC Tournament ended with Petra 1 in 1st place and Petra 2 in 2nd place. Congratulations Petra 1 for winning the championship.