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WE WON! Our "A" team of Emily Pike, Steve Jenkins, Andy Felton and Cheryl Klein went undefeated in a seven game divisional round robin, and then won the tournament by besting first Quincy and then Wichita State in the playoffs. The final was best two of three, with Carleton winning the first game 395-255, Wichita State winning the second, 310-270, and Carleton capturing the deciding game 510-210. Our "B" team of Katy Beebe, Dan Snyder, Ted Salk and Joshua Stough went 3-4. This tournament also featured two side "shootout" competitions for individual players--one among the tournament's eight all-stars, and the other, called "Rookie Bowl," limited to the eight highest scorers among first and second year players only. Andy, Katy, and Dan all won spots in the latter competition, and Andy won it, with Katy placing third. Katy and Emily won spots in the all-star shootout, with Emily winning the event. Saturday night's celebrations included pizza and a movie (Swingers) at Katy's house in Belton. Thanks to Katy's and Cheryl's families for providing us with free lodging!
Carleton went 10-2 overall to finish 3rd in a field of 22 teams. Andy, Cheryl, Emily, and Katy won their round robin division with a record of 9-1. They then defeated Iowa State in a quarterfinal playoff match, 300-235, before falling in the semifinals to Illinois A, 400-320. (Illinois A was then overturned in the finals by Vanderbilt A. The other semifinal loser was Vanderbilt B, who Carleton beat in the round robin, so we claim 3rd place.) In the other most hotly-contested tournament moment, Katy beat teammate Cheryl to the buzzer on the Pride and Prejudice tossup. Andy was our top individual scorer for this tournament, and showed off his creative powers as well by writing a very def Academic Quiz Competition rap in the van on the way to St. Louis. Thanks to Emily's family for putting us up in De Kalb Saturday night on the way back.
3rd Place, among the nine schools, only 5 points (the equivalent of one more win at 1st singles, 1st doubles, or 1st quads) away from the championship! Wow. This was an exciting event, about as close as can be among the top four finishers: Chicago (150 pts.), Michigan (149 pts.), Carleton (145 pts.), and Illinois (143 pts.) A fuller tournament summary is available elsewhere on this website. Here's how we did in all the classes: 1st quads (Andy, Emily, Neil Macker, Ted - with Luke Beland replacing Neil for the last match) 6-2. 2nd quads (Cheryl, Dan, Katy, Jim Maiwurm) 5-3. 1st singles (Andy) 4-4. 2nd singles (Emily) 3-5. 1st doubles (Cheryl, Dan) 5-3. 2nd doubles (Katy, Ted) 5-3. 3rd doubles (Jim, Luke) 6-2. Coach says: you guys rock!
WE WON! The Carleton "A" team of Andy, Cheryl, Emily and Steve completed the first perfect (undefeated) tournament in school history, going 10-0 in round-robin play, and then winning playoff matches against St. Olaf (440-220), Iowa (430-185), and Illinois (375-200) to win the tournament. The Carleton "B" team of Dan, Luke, Neil and Ted was 4-6 in the round-robin, and then ousted in the playoffs by Illinois "B". According to our records, the victorious Carleton team outscored opponents by a collective 5770-2335 margin over the 13 games, or by better than 260 points per game. The closest match was the 445-375 round-robin victory over Illinois "Smoke"; no other match was closer than a 155 point difference. The coach's favorite buzz of the tournament was Emily's interrupting a tossup after only "Because he spoke Russian he was based in St. Petersburg as an importer" with the correct answer: Heinrich Schliemann. By winning this event we became the first team in the country to have won two NAQT tournaments so far this year. This concluded our fall schedule on a very high note!
We hosted this tournament won by Iowa State University with St. Olaf College runners-up. Carleton's "regular" teams didn't play, but as late replacements for a school that cancelled two teams, we did cobble together two three-person teams on late notice to enter the field. Carleton "Achilles," consisting of three of our first-year players, Jim Maiwurm, Joshua Stough, and Justin Thomson, had a record of 5-6. Carleton "Patroclus," consisting of last-minute recruits from the Carleton student body, was Alden Mahler, Jonathan Andrews, and Brian Fleming. They finished 3-8.
We brought three teams to the annual Wisconsin tournament. The format gave us lots of games, which we very much appreciated! First, the 13 teams entered played a full round robin, in which Carleton "United Presleyterian Church" (Andy, Cheryl, Emily, and Steve) went 10-2, Carleton "All Shook Up" (Andrew, Katy, Ted, and Jonathan Andrews) went 5-7, and Carleton "Hound Dog" (Dan, Luke, John Weiss, and Brian Fleming) went 1-11. The field was then divided into two divisions, each playing a second round-robin. In these, Carleton "UPC" went 4-2 in the upper division to finish with an overall 14-4 record; Carleton "ASU" went 3-2 in the lower division to finish 8-9 overall, and Carleton "HD" went 2-3 in the lower division to finish 3-14 overall. One of Carleton Hound Dog's three wins in the tournament was over Carleton All Shook Up, much to the delight of the former. Carleton All Shook Up's competitive highlights may have been upset wins over Iowa State A (which beat Carleton UPC twice) and over Illinois in the original round robin. Carleton UPC's 14-4 record tied them with Iowa for best in the tournament, and gave them the #2 seed entering the single-elimination playoffs. In the playoff semifinal, however, Carleton lost to the #3 seed, the University of Chicago, who they had beaten twice earlier in the tournament. Chicago took the semifinal match 375-210, and went on to beat Illinois in a nail-biter for the tournament championship. Carleton did manage to come home with some honors, though, as tournament participants voted Carleton UPC's submitted packet (with double "fun") as the tournament's best, Eric Hillemann as the best moderator, and Katy Beebe as winner of the "best hat" contest for her "Cleopatra" chapeau. Andy Felton, sporting sort of a reverse-Mohawk haircut as penalty for losing a high-stakes badminton game earlier in the week, would have won the "most in need of a hat" contest hands down, had there only been one.
We brought three teams, with the result that Carleton A (Andy, Cheryl, Emily, Steve) finished in 3rd place, Carleton B (Andrew, Brian, Dan, Katy) finished 5th, and Carleton C (Jonathan, Ted, Chris Doten and Will Cavert) finished 6th--but took the "Division II" championship for being the top team comprised entirely of novice players (in their first year of competition). (Alright, they were the only novice team entered, but still, that qualifies them for the novice division at the NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament in Nashville in April, and they played great, winning 6 games.) For Carleton A, which also qualifies for the NAQT ICT, the results were rather a repeat of the Elvis tournament from the week before: they finished the pre-playoff play tied for first place with a 9-3 record, got the 2nd seed for the playoffs based on point differential among the tied teams, and then were ousted in the playoff semifinals by the 3rd seed, which went on to win the tournament--this time, Iowa State. Carleton A then smashed Minnesota B in a third place game. Andrew, playing on Carleton B, was the tournament's 4th highest individual scorer, and Carleton A placed three in the top twelve: Emily 7th, Andy 10th, and Steve 12th.
This was an "open" tournament in which non-students were also welcome to play. A 3/4 Carleton team of Katy Beebe, Eric Hillemann, and Steve Jenkins, playing with former Iowa Stater Rob Hentzel as "St. Valentine's Day Massacre," won the tournament, going 12-3 to earn first seed in the playoffs and then beating two Berkeley teams (both combining current students and "masters") in the playoffs. The final match was as exciting as one could wish for, with St. Valentine's Day Massacre prevailing 370-360. Each member of the team contributed crucially in that game, with Eric getting the team's final, and decisive, tossup because he's old. (Something about a 1971 album with a zipper on the cover... BUZZ! "The Rolling Stones''Sticky Fingers!'") The all-student Carleton team of Andrew, Andy, Cheryl, and Emily finished 5th, (2nd to Vanderbilt among student-only teams), and missed the playoffs by a hair, though averaging significantly more points per game than the 4th place team, rats. The Carleton student team did thump the mostly-Carleton Masters team that won the tournament though, the first of two times they played, which was much to the students' satisfaction! St. Valentine's Day Massacre's Rob Hentzel and Eric Hillemann each won awards for being among the tournament's top five individual scorers, Rob being #1 and Eric #5. The overall experience of three days in San Francisco/Palo Alto was pretty awesome; definitely one of the funnest, if not THE funnest, trips the team has ever made. We all stayed at Rob's house in the Presidio in SF, and balanced packet-playing there with eating and tourist-ing in San Francisco. A frolic on Ocean Beach was a highlight, and, yes, we did the obligatory drive down Lombard Street and made a visit to Ghiradelli Square/Fisherman's Wharf. Andy never did get Chelsea's phone number at Stanford, though.
A Carleton team of Andrew, Andy, Cheryl, and Emily took 2nd place in the Midwest. Following a full (12 team) round robin and then a split field round robin for the top six teams, Carleton was in first place with a record of 14-2. (Both losses came at the hands of the University of Illinois, which wound up 3rd in the tournament.) This set up a championship final versus the University of Chicago, which was 13-3. In the final, due to Carleton's better record to that point, Carleton needed to win only one game to take the championship, while Chicago--which Carleton had already defeated twice--would need to win two straight for the championship. Unfortunately for us, that's exactly what they did, by scores of 295-110 and 205-180. The second, deciding, finals game could have gone either way right down to the last question. Coming so close to this title but falling short could be agonizing, but really we were pretty thrilled to make the final two at all in so strong a field, topping powers such as Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Iowa State. Andy finished 4th in the tournament in individual scoring, earning an all-star citation and receiving the 3rd edition of the "Oxford Companion to English Literature" as a prize. All four Carleton players were among the tournament's top 22 scorers, showing nice team balance. The team enjoyed a pre-tournament visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, and thank Emily's parents for once again putting us up, this time for three nights.
Taking as their tournament theme song loud renditions of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," two Carleton teams headed for Nashville determined to do some damage. They did: in the tournament with the strongest, most impressive collegiate field ever yet assembled in one place, where we finished 35th a year ago, the top Carleton team of Andy, Cheryl, Emily and Steve, all sporting removable action-hero "tattoos," came home 17th overall in the elite 46-team field, and 4th out of 17 in the competition for the all-undergraduate team national championship. (The undergraduate national championship was won by Swarthmore--11th overall--who Carleton did defeat the first night of the tournament, though we fell behind them in the standings the second day. The overall national championship was won by Stanford.) Carleton wins over the course of the tournament came over Williams, Wash U./St. Louis, Swarthmore, Johns Hopkins, Virginia Tech, Harvard B, Penn, and Florida. Carleton's Division II (novice teams) entry was a threesome consisting of Chris, Ted, and Will. They placed 11th in a 14 team field, going 4-9, and collecting valuable experience for the future. Congratulations to team captain Emily on her 21st birthday Friday night in Nashville. We whooped it up at the Waffle House...
This was an especially fun tournament, with an experimental format for teams of up to eight players each, splitting themselves differently each round to play packets on particular subjects or themes -- you had a choice each round who to send to which packet. Points were scored not only for wins (3 points) but also for beating teams by large margins, a bonus point being earned for every 40 points of margin, up to a maximum of 11 points per packet. Due to some of the originally invited student teams pulling out, and to Wisconsin being unable to field a full team, a "Chimera" team was formed from three Wisconsin players, their coach, Mark Zimmer, Chicagoan Sarah Bruce, and our coach, Eric Hillemann. This team won the tournament with 170 points, with Illinois second at 167, and the Carleton team of Andy, Cheryl, Dan, Emily, Neil, Steve, and Ted finishing 3rd with 139, ahead of Iowa State, Chicago, Minnesota, Wichita State, and Wash. U. Individual tournament all-stars were awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals, with Carleton's Andy winning a bronze as the tournament's 8th highest scorer, and Eric winning a gold as the tournament's top scorer. Iowa's packet-writers also gave out a number of additional awards to the tournament's top scorers on particular subject packets, and Eric won several of these: Presidents and Politics, American History of the Jacksonian Era, Non-English Literature, Women in Literature, and Ireland. A "lightning round" individual tossup competition was also held as a side event; this was won by Eric (another gold medal) with Carleton's Cheryl placing 6th and Andy 7th. Andy also received one of three special "spirit" awards given by the Iowa hosts for general congeniality and fun.
Andrew, Andy, Cheryl and Emily attended this tournament unaccompanied by coach. Frustratingly, the results aren't entirely clear, as the organizers have never posted any account other than the top few finishers, and the purported ACF webpage still hasn't put any result up by midsummer 1998. The team believes they went 8-8, including victories over Michigan, Chicago A and B, Maryland B, Broward, Wichita State, and Harvard B, in Round 15, the "spandex" round for the Carleton fashion trend-setters. Andy's parents got to see some of the competition, and the good time was not entirely marred by the break-in to the Feltons' car while parked in DC, which resulted in the theft of one of our buzzer sets. (We're just imagining the larcenous cretins opening up The Judge to see what they took, and then heaving it into the Potomac in disgust.)
