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Andy Felton, Katy Beebe, Gabe Lyon, and Shane Ewert attended this tournament for Carleton, and went 7-6. Coach was busy celebrating his son's one-week birthday, so he didn't come along. If one of the participants wants to offer a fuller report, we'll take it...
Our eight-person squad finished a strong third in this annual test of depth among the powers of the upper-Midwest, scoring 156 points to place behind Illinois (204 pts.) and a surprising Iowa lineup (163). Aided by the fact that Michigan (141) and Chicago (124) did not bring several of their top players, we finished well ahead of those schools, as well as Minnesota (106), Wisconsin (100), Iowa State (50), and a unified team of extras from many of the schools (36). Carleton won two of the seven classes of competition, 1st quads and 1st doubles, and had a losing record in only one of them, 2nd doubles. Here is how we placed in each category: 1st quads (Andy, Cheryl Klein, Dan Snyder, Brian Droitcour) 6-2. 2nd quads (Katy, Gabe, Shane, Ted Salk) 6-2. 1st singles (Andy) 4-4. 2nd singles (Shane) 4-4. 1st doubles (Cheryl, Dan) 8-0. 2nd doubles (Katy, Gabe) 2-6. 3rd doubles (Ted, Brian) 6-2.
WE WON! (Twice). We sent a team-record 17 players to this tournament, entering two teams each in Division I and Division II competition. Carleton won both divisions, with our "A" team (Carleton D'Artagnan) of Andy, Cheryl, Dan, and Will Cavert, playing all together for the first time, going undefeated (15-0) throughout the tournament, crushing Arkansas in the final, and outscoring opponents overall 5105-1155, or an average winning margin of 263.3 points per game. Andy was clearly the tournament's dominant player. Our Division I "B" team of Brian, Gabe, Katy, and Shane (Carleton Athos) also won most of their matches, and beat Minnesota to reach the playoff semifinals, where they lost to Carleton D'Artagnan. Our "C" team of Brant Beyer, Chris Idemmili, Hans Wietzke, and Tom Amorde (Carleton Aramis) won the Division II title, beating St. Olaf in the final. (That St. Olaf team came as only a three-person team, and since we had five players for our "D" team, we loaned them one--Jon Langager--for the tournament. So Carleton had a presence on both teams in the all-Northfield Division II championship game.) Carleton's "D" team of Evan Carver, Matt Strait, Neal Schuster, and Sylvia Carlisle (Carleton Porthos) also made it to the Division II semifinals, where they were defeated by Carleton Aramis. Earlier, in the round robin portion of the tournament, Carleton Porthos upset Carleton Aramis, to the great satisfaction of the former. Altogether a very good weekend for Carleton, and a nice first tournament experience for eight of our newest players. The only disappointment was that Little Taipei raised prices from $2.99 to $3.25 for most dishes. The orange chicken is still just as good, though.
Andy, Cheryl, Will, and Shane made the long drive to Ann Arbor for this one, and finished with a 9-5 record on the day. Some close losses left them at 5-3 after the initial divisional round robin, and relegated to the middle division for playoffs, where they went 4-2 for an overall finish of 12th in a field of 27. Here is Cheryl's summary: We began by defeating Northwestern Bauer handily, 185-40. Our second round was against the Andrew Yaphe-armed Chicago A, but we lost only 190-120, the closest game that team had all day. (This was probably because it was at 8:30 in the morning.) Next, an unfortunate 165-150 loss to Michigan State, followed by a 160-70 defeat of Ohio State, a 290-80 trouncing of Texas A&M, and then 345-50 and 245-120 victories over the Pitt Downocrats and Bowling Green, respectively, and a 270-240 loss to Penn State A. (*That* was a good game, well-played by both teams and coming down to the last tossup.) At this point, I believe, they divided us into upper and lower brackets. We fell to Illinois B by a mere 15 points, 150-135, but got back up to defeat Western Ontario 225-70. We clobbered a different Western Ontario team 355-80, dropped before Brigham Young Refugees (how appropriate) 280-150, slipped by Chicago C 155-150, and beat down the Pitt Getuplicans 200-85. From here I've failed to keep score, but the MLK website says we defeated Bowling Green 245-120 and Ohio State 160-70 (yes, again), and lost to Came East 280-150. By my (somewhat unreliable) addition, we scored 3640 total points against our opponents' 2270 total points. We finished 12th, Andy was the seventh-highest scorer at the tournament, and a good time was had by all.
Carleton entered four teams in this tournament for first- and second-year players, played at Carleton but hosted by the University of Minnesota. The sophomore trio of Shane, Gabe, and Chris Idemmili easily led the tournament in points scored, but had to settle for 2nd place when they lost in a double-length final to a University of Wisconsin team, 405-295. Earlier Wisconsin had forced the playoff by winning a match in doubt until the final tossup--had Carleton taken that tossup (Jimmy Carter), they'd have finished the round-robin undefeated and won the tournament outright with no playoff. Carleton's long history of downright spooky domination when it comes to Wisconsin teams is looking more and more like a thing of the past. But to accentuate the positive: during the round robin, in going 10-1 Shane, Gabe, Chris outscored opponents by a collective score of 3285 to 1170 -- pretty nice. Other Carleton teams playing were: Hans, Chris Clark, Evan, and Heather Purdy, who went 7-4; Neal, David Niles, Sylvia, and Kelly Tolle, who went 4-7; and Brant, Courtney Colby, and Stu Gorman, who went 2-9. Four Carleton players were tournament all-stars, with Shane finishing 2nd in individual scoring in the tournament, Gabe 4th, and Brant and Hans tied for 5th.
We brought two teams to the 13th annual running of the Elvis. Our A team for this one, Andy, Cheryl, Will, and Matt, went 11-7 to finish 4th behind Wisconsin, Michigan, and Chicago, while our B team of Katy, Gabe, Shane, and Brant went 7-11 and placed 6th. The tournament started with Carleton B drubbing Carleton A pretty handily, but A got their revenge in like fashion the second time they played in the double round robin. Andy finished 2nd in the tournament in scoring, earning all-star recognition. For the 4th straight year a Carleton round was voted the tournament's best packet. And Katy was a clear winner of the "best hat" contest, thanks to her Phantom Menace-Queen Amidala regalia. Coach flaunted the fact that he's been to all 13 of the Elvis tournaments to date, by wearing t-shirts from the 3rd (Friday) and the 4th (Saturday). He claims that Elvis t-shirts constitute about half of his current wardrobe.
Four Carleton teams travelled to Evanston for the NAQT SCT, two in Division I and two in Division II. Northwestern did a terrific job of hosting, and the large tournament was enjoyable, but Carleton's results weren't, all in all, what we'd hoped. Carleton A (Andy, Cheryl, Dan, and Will) earned an automatic invitation to the NAQT ICT in Boston by winning the Midwest undergraduate championship, but did so with a losing record (6-7, in a very tough field), and with an alarming attack of neg.-five-itis -- 39 of them over 13 rounds, including 9 in a single game in a loss to Minnesota (a mark I assume to be an all-time Carleton record). The 6-7 record might easily have been worse: Carleton A had another 7 negs versus St. Thomas University, a one-man team from Florida that went winless in the tournament, but who we were lucky to beat by 10; and we beat Washington-St. Louis, a team that finished 3-10, by only 5 points. Overall, Carleton A was outscored by its opponents on the day by more than 1000 points, and finished 7th in the field of 14. Oh well, shake it off -- hopefully whatever bug we had that day will be all gone by the time of the championships in Boston. Our "B" team of Gabe, Katy, Shane, and Ted beat our "A" team for the second time in consecutive weekends, but wound up going 5-8 and landing well down the waitlist for an invitation to Boston. In Division II, our teams went 5-7 and 3-9, finishing 8th and 10th in their separate 13-team field. In something of an anomaly, what was supposed to be our "A" Division II team (Brant, Chris I., Hans, and Tom), was the one that went 3-9; a surprising record considering that they actually outscored their opponents for the day 3180-3050; a combination possible only by winning three matches by large margins, but consistently losing everything that was close. (8 of their 9 losses were by 100 points or less; some of them by much less.) This team too went a bit heavy on the neg. fives: 35, in 12 rounds. Our "B" Division II team (Chris C., David, Evan, and Neal) had half the number of negs and, perhaps not coincidentally, two more wins. As over-wild buzzing seems to be the theme of this report, congratulations are in order to Gabe Lyon of our Division I "B" team, and David Niles of our Division II "B" team, who between them had 55 tossups (10 for power) without a single neg. They were the only two players in the tournament to score more than 20 tossups each without a single neg. Overall, our top scorers for the tournament across all teams were Hans, with a nice 33.75 ppg. average, and Neal, at 29.58.
We brought two teams, which finished 4th (Andy, Cheryl, Will) and 7th (Shane, Katy, Gabe, Neal) in the 14-team field. Andy and Cheryl were all-stars, finishing 5th and 8th in individual scoring -- Cheryl was the only woman to finish in the top 20. Cheryl's ratio of 36 tossups to only 4 neg. fives was the most impressive in the tournament, and Neal at 7-0 had the most tossups without a single neg. Further details will have to wait for the report of team results from the tournament hosts, and/or a writeup from one of the players who went.
CUT 2 ran very successfully with a field of 23, six of them Carleton teams. Carleton "Ministry of Magic" (Cheryl and Ted) was the most successful, winning the 12-team Peanut Butter Division with a 9-2 record, and defeating a Minnesota duo to advance to the 1st place game, but falling there to the impressive Iowa State foursome that had won the Jelly Division, to take 2nd place. The other Carleton teams entered, in order of their final finish, were: Carleton Slytherin (Andy), 9th; Carleton Azkaban (Gabe and Shane), 10th; Carleton Gryffindor (Katy and Will), 11th; Carleton Ravenclaw (Chris Clark, Evan, Neal, Sylvia), 12th; and Carleton Hufflepuff (Brant, Courtney, Heather, Matt), 19th. Team member Dave Niles spent the day helping as a moderator, for which we were very grateful.
At this tournament Princeton succeeded Carleton as undergraduate national champions, but the Carleton foursome of Andy, Cheryl, Gabe, and Will nonetheless finished a solid 2nd among the undergrad teams, and 13th overall. In Friday evening's pre-set schedule Carleton went 5-1, beating George Mason University, Yale, Trinity College-Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell, but losing to Maryland by 10. In the power-matched rounds, all tough teams thanks to Friday night's record, Carleton defeated Wisconsin and Penn State, losing to Penn, Princeton, and Oklahoma. That resulted in the team receiving number 12 overall to begin the four ladder rounds, during which losses to Penn State and Yale, but a win over Oxford A, resulted in our final position of 13th. The team was cheered on throughout by Andy's mother and sister. Saturday after the tournament the Carleton contingent (including Eric and alumna Emily) feasted on Indian food (just as we did last year in Ann Arbor - not a bad tradition!), and then the E's went off to the NAQT business meeting where Emily survived, nay even enjoyed, whatever hazing rituals may have accompanied her apotheosis to full NAQT membership. Sunday's flight back wasn't until evening, so there was time for a bit of the Freedom Trail, lunch at Quincy Market, and a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. A nice weekend and satisfying team performance!
The Carleton team of Andy, Cheryl, Will, and Shane enjoyed their weekend sojourn to College Park, and placed 10th in the country in the ACF format. They outscored opponents collectively by more than 500 points over 14 games, and had wins over Wichita State, UCLA A and B, Michigan B, Case Western, and Princeton B. Andy, keeping his scoring to negs. ratio above 5-1 this time (yea, Andy!), finished 9th in the tournament in individual scoring. The team enjoyed some time in D.C. museums on Easter Sunday before flying home that afternoon.
Carleton returned with 2nd place trophies in both divisions. In Division I, Andy, Cheryl, and Ted went 11-1, losing only to the champion team from Illinois. Andy finished 3rd in the tournament in individual scoring. (He also, I'm told, earned a special place in quizbowl lore by beating Fabio Juliano to a swastika tossup.) Cheryl was apparently the only player in the tournament to correctly answer the Gene Stratton-Porter tossup. In Division II, the Carleton team of Brant, Chris I., Gabe, and Shane went 8-3 to also finish 2nd. Shane was 3rd in Division II in individual scoring, and was apparently the only player in the tournament to correctly answer the "cognitive dissonance" tossup. Everyone agreed that moon pies are delicious, and that Charlie puts on a good tournament. With the strong 2nd place finish, seniors Andy and Cheryl close out their undergraduate intercollegiate careers in good form!
