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This was an open tournament, in which non-students were welcome to play, and titles would be awarded to a collegiate champion as well as the overall champion, if the overall title was not won by a college team. We entered an "A" team of Emily Pike, Steve Jenkins, Will Cavert, and Luke Beland, and a "B" team of Ted Salk captaining four frosh making their intercollegiate tournament debuts: Gabe Lyon, Chris Idemmili, Shane Ewert, and Kelly Tolle. Our coach, Eric Hillemann, also entered as a solo team. Results: the 24 teams each played an initial 13 games to generate seedings from 1-24 into single elimination playoffs. Carleton B went 5-8, was seeded #16, and was then defeated in the first round of playoffs by the #9 seed. Carleton A went 11-2 to earn the #2 seed -- the top seed among collegiate teams. Eric also went 11-2 to become the #3 seed; his losses were to the undefeated #1 seed (Rob Hentzel et. al., by 10 points on the last question) and to Carleton A, by 20. Carleton's losses were to Hentzel et. al. and to Bowling Green A. Unfortunately, after winning one round in the playoffs, Carleton A was upset by an Iowa State team that started out seeded #12, but got hot at the right time (or wrong time, depending on one's point of view), and ousted first Carleton and then the previously undefeated Hentzel team. ISU's hot hand did help Eric's cause, though, by knocking out the two teams he had lost to earlier. #5 seed Minnesota beat ISU to win the collegiate title, and Eric then defeated Minnesota to win the overall championship with a 15-2 record for the day. (Historical footnote: Eric thus became only the fourth person in academic quizbowl history to win an official team tournament without teammates, joining Tom Waters, Rob Hentzel, and Jason King in a select club.) Emily and Steve earned bronze medals, and Eric a gold, for being among the tournament's top individual scorers. The entire team enjoyed a fine Chinese dinner together in Iowa City before heading home.
By measuring the strength of our top eight players against the top eight of the other powers of the northern midwest, this was exactly the tournament to most clearly underscore the effect of not having Andy, Cheryl, Katy, and Andrew available for play for us this fall. In a field with no patsies, we missed the depth that would have been afforded by the absent ones: we finished in 6th place, about a mile and half behind the runaway winners, Chicago, and equally runaway runnersup, Michigan. On the bright side, everyone won at least one match for us, in each category. Here's how we did in all the classes: 1st quads (Steve, Will, Dan Snyder, Andrew Eppig) 1-6. 2nd quads (Emily, Ted, Shane, Brian Droitcour) 4-3. 1st singles (Emily) 4-3. 2nd singles (Ted) 1-6. 1st doubles (Steve, Andrew E.) 4-3, 2nd doubles (Dan, Gabe) 2-5, 3rd doubles (Shane, Brian) 1-6.
Another tournament with open eligibility, so we sent one student team (Emily, Steve, Ted, Gabe) and our coach also entered a team, playing with Dan, and two from Wisconsin (coach Mark Zimmer and grad student Sheila Ross). The student team took 4th place in the tournament, 3rd among collegiate teams. (8-4 in the round robin, and then 0-3 in the playoffs among the top four teams.) Eric and Dan's team finished 6th (7-5 in the round robin, then 2-1 in the playoffs among teams #5-8.) The Carleton team beat their coach's squad in a close match. Eric did finish 4th in the tournament in individual scoring, and received a medal for thus being part of the "all-tournament" team. Thanks again to Emily's family for putting us up Saturday night after the tournament. Emily proved herself psychic on the way to the tournament, by the way: we stopped for lunch at our favorite restaurant, Little Taipei in Ames, and Emily remarked that she kept expecting to see Chris Mayfield of the Iowa State team walk up the stairs...about 30 seconds before he did indeed do so, and joined us. Spooky.
This tournament lasted one tossup too long. Going into the last question of the deciding finals match with the tourney title on the line, the Carleton A team of Andrew Ulland, Cheryl, Dan, and Steve led Arkansas 290 to 285, meaning that the championship all came down to the final tossup. Unfortunately, we didn't get it, and had to settle for a strong 2nd place to Arkansas out of a 16 team field. Carleton brought four teams -- 14 players -- to this event, a new high for our program. As we always do, we had a good time. We are grateful to Cheryl's parents and Katy's mother for bravely allowing all 15 of us to camp out at those two houses. The trip was notable as the first weekend of quiz competition in the past four seasons where team captain Emily stayed home. We split the rest of our veteran talent between our A and B teams, and entered two all-frosh squads as Carleton C and D. The D team of Chris, John Heider, and Kelly was winless at 0-7, but the C team of Andrew Eppig, Brian, Gabe, and Shane managed a winning record of 4-3 in a division with no other all-frosh teams, and missed making the playoffs only on a tiebreaker. Carleton B, consisting of Andy Felton, Katy Beebe, and Ted, went 5-2 in the preliminary round robin, good enough for the second seed from their division entering the playoffs -- but lost there in the quarterfinals to Washington University, 430-240. Carleton A was the top seed from the other division, on the strength of a 6-1 record in the preliminary round robin, beat the University of Missouri in the quarterfinals 385-340, defeated Washington University in the semifinals 395-225, and then had an epic battle with Arkansas, winning the first of the best two of three game final 395-210, but then dropping the last two, 420-200 and 305-290. The tournament also featured a shootout competition side event among the tournament's top eight individual scorers, and Carleton placed three into that field, Andrew Ulland (who finished 7th), Andy (who finished 4th) and Steve (who finished 3rd). A good event to use as the first tournament of the year for four of our veterans, and the intercollegiate debut for John.
Carleton did some super things at this year's Penn Bowl -- the nation's largest invitational tournament, this year with 57 teams. For the first time this season we were able to play our top foursome of Andy, Cheryl, Emily and Steve as a unit. And they delivered, going 12-1 in round robin play to win one of the four divisions and earn a top seed into the playoffs. During the round robin Carleton outscored opponents overall by a cumulative score of 3650-1485, and was kept from a perfect record only by a 250-235 loss to Cornell. The biggest head turner was a 235-225 victory over Maryland A, currently the second-ranked team in the country. This may have been the most impressive single match victory, or at least loftiest upset pulled off, in Carleton's quizbowl history to date. Other wins came over Delaware B, Harvard B, Florida A, Pittsburgh B, Yale D, Johns Hopkins B, Dartmouth A, Chicago C, Yale B, Virginia Tech C, and Swarthmore B. Unfortunately, once the tournament moved to single elimination playoffs involving the top 16 teams, we were quickly and unceremoniously ousted by a terrific Michigan A team, to make our overall record 12-2. The team was happy in the knowledge that they'd played very well throughout, and our post-tournament dinner at Sitar of India had a nice celebratory feel. Sunday's flight back wasn't until evening, so we also got a free day in Philadelphia, spent mostly at the Art Museum and then the Rosenbach Library, which had a terrific tour and special display of Lewis Carroll memorabilia. Andy continues to give us all the straight dope about the value of citrus and the evils of mucus.
WE WON! After back to back years of losing in the semifinals, a Carleton team captured an Elvis championship, and in exciting fashion too. The Carleton A team of Andy, Cheryl, Emily, and Steve went 12-3 in preliminary round matches--good enough for the top seed going into single-elimination playoffs. (Carleton B, reduced to the threesome of Dan, Katy, and Ted, after Andrew Ulland had to scratch due to illness, went 5-9, and Carleton C--an all-frosh entry of Brian, Gabe, John and Shane, finished 3-11.) Carleton A's semifinal versus Minnesota had one of the most nail-biting finishes coach Hillemann has ever had to writhe through in the audience. Down by 100 points with only five tossups to play, on a packet where bonus points had proved very hard to score in abundance, Carleton pulled it out by answering all five of the final tossups. Starting the last question, Carleton was still behind 240-220, but Emily rang in fast on a tossup on the Intolerable Acts, and then single-handedly 30'ed the bonus for Carleton to prevail 260-240. Whew. Then in the final, versus Chicago, Carleton again had to come from behind, twice. We were down 190-160 with two tossups remaining, but took them both--each time after Chicago came in first with incorrect interrupts--and scored full 30s on both bonuses to win the championship 240-180. After losing one tournament final last spring on the last tossup, and another just two weeks ago the same way, it was wonderful to finally prevail on one of those. As Steve put it in the van on the trip back home, "winning tastes like chocolate." Emily and Andy were each named to the tournament All-Star team, Emily to the #1 position. And to top it off, Carleton A's submitted question packet was voted the best-of-tournament for the third year in a row.
Carleton brought three teams to the Midwest SCT in Iowa City and qualified each of them, two Division I teams and a Division II (novice) team, for the NAQT Intercollegiate Championships in April. In Division I, Carleton A (Andy, Cheryl, Emily, and Steve) finished the round robin 13-2, losing only to the top teams from Illinois and Chicago. The other 13 teams Carleton defeated by a combined score of 4225 to 2125. In a semifinal match with Chicago, the eventual champions, Carleton fell 425-175 to finish third overall in the tournament, but winning the all-undergraduate team title. Carleton B (Andrew U., Dan, Katy, Ted) finished in a tie for 8th place, with a 7-8 record in a tough field. In Division II our frosh team of Andrew E., Brian, Gabe, and Shane, performed great, finishing 2nd to Chicago after defeating Northwestern in a one-game playoff for entry to the finals. Nice work, everyone! On the way home, naturally, we stopped in Ames to introduce the frosh to Little Taipei.
In something of a reprise of the results at the NAQT Midwest Sectionals, the ACF Midwest Regionals resulted in Carleton's again finishing 3rd (tied for, this time, with Michigan), again behind Chicago and Illinois, but again being the top all-undergrad team. (Not a title ACF recognizes officially, the way NAQT does, but WE notice!). Playing the same A and B teams as we did for the NAQT Sectionals, Carleton A went 5-2 in a divisional round robin to qualify for placement into the top bracket for a secondary round robin in which they went 4-3 to finish up at 9-5. Carleton B went 3-4 and then 4-3 in the lower bracket round robin, to finish 7-7, good for 10th place. Once again we enjoyed the hospitality of staying with Emily's family in De Kalb. This trip's film rental: Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps."
We hosted what we project as the "first annual" CUT, and it went well. Carleton's own participation was limited by the need to staff the tournament with moderators, but we still entered four teams, with three of them placing in the top six. The "team" consisting of Emily Pike playing solo led the entire tournament in scoring, and an all-frosh Carleton team captured a trophy for finishing a strong third. Our teams were Carleton Bennet (Andrew E., Brian, Gabe, and Shane), Carleton Woodhouse (Emily), Carleton Dashwood (Dan and Katy), and Carleton Elliott (Chris Clark, Chris Idemmili, John, and Kelly). These teams' final placements in the 22 team field were, in order, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 14th. Our tournament was won by a two person team from Quincy University, with a two person team from Illinois finishing 2nd.
This event, open to masters as well as students, was attended by our "A" team of Andy, Cheryl, Emily, and Steve, as well as by our coach, Eric. It began on Friday night with a singles tournament, using the "Hillemann" format to provide competition for 36 individuals. All five of us entered, and all five made the top half cutoff, with three of us emerging from the seeding rounds with top-five seeds: Emily #2, Cheryl #3, and Eric #5. One of the highlights of the double elimination head-to-head singles matches that followed was 12th-seeded Steve's first-round win over his coach, Eric. In the end, Emily finished 4th, and Eric 5th, to place among the prizewinners. The team tournament the next day saw Eric's team -- himself and former Iowa State and Illinois player Karl Schmidt -- go 14-2 to finish in 2nd place, and win a trophy as the top masters team, while the Carleton student team finished 12-4, good for 4th place overall, 3rd among collegiate teams behind Chicago and Iowa. The head to head between Eric's team and the Carleton team was a close one, with Eric and Karl prevailing 290-260 -- somewhat to Eric's surprise, as he had grown accustomed this year to losing all close matches versus his own players. We enjoyed Saturday night in the motel, playing questions till 2 am with friends among the masters players: Karl, Scott (Coon), Chris (Mayfield), and Chad (Kubicek). What with packets in the van on the long drive to Quincy, singles Friday night, 16 rounds of competition Saturday, hours more play Saturday night, and further rounds in the van on the way home, we heard an awful lot of questions over three days; our idea of an ideal weekend, and not a bad way to get ready for the Big One, coming up in Ann Arbor.
WE WON THE 1999 UNDERGRADUATE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP! And if winning the Elvis tasted like chocolate, this tastes like Super triple-plus-good royale fudge chocolate chunk extraordinaire. Achieving a goal set long ago, which we knew to be both lofty and, for this team, attainable, Emily, Andy, Cheryl, and Steve fought their way through an impressive field of 48 top teams to a giddy 8th place finish overall, which was 1st by six positions for the undergrad title that had been our grail all year. Their 10-5 record for the tournament included a 225-185 victory over Swarthmore, the defending undergrad national champions widely seen as Carleton's primary competition for this year's title. This foursome was playing together in their third straight NAQT ICT, but their last tournament together, as it was the last official event in Emily's outstanding undergraduate career. Winning the title (and each of the last three games they played: Iowa, George Washington, and Virginia Tech) was a very satisfying way to cap Emily's Carleton career and close the books on this most-productive Carleton team. At the same time that one team fulfilled their potential, another served notice that the immediate future also looks bright for our program, as the all-frosh contingent of Andrew E., Brian, Gabe, and Shane placed third in the country in the Division II (novice teams) competition, placing behind only Princeton and Chicago, and a notch above Harvard. Carleton's "B" team of Andrew U., Katy, Dan, and Ted, also qualified for the elite Division I field, and came home 33rd. Carleton was thus far and away the smallest school to have two teams qualify for the national tournament, and, with the novice Division II entry as well, meant that we brought about 0.7% of the Carleton student body to the event! There was much to celebrate, and Saturday evening's dinner--at a fine Indian restaurant; does this team have good taste or what?--was one of the HAPPIEST meals most of us have ever experienced.
Back on campus afterwards, members of the champion "A" team, and their coach, began paying up on pledges made in advance of the tournament regarding what we'd all do if we won the national championship. Team captain Emily, trying to motivate the team to peak performance, started the pledges with a promise to have her belly-button pierced if we won it. Eric shaved off his beard. Cheryl appeared on campus for several days with her blond hair dyed bluish-green. Andy pledged to make a gourmet meal for the rest of us. And Steve decided that his pledge would be to book a date at a campus venue where he will do R&B under the stage name "Sexxxy," as well as perform a set of Ani DiFranco songs in full drag.
