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With several of this year's key players abroad for Fall Term, Carleton finished dead last among the seven midwestern powers represented at this annual test of team depth: Illinois, Chicago, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Iowa State, and us. But the mood was upbeat nonetheless as 1) we knew this was coming, 2) the event was a nice intercollegiate quizbowl debut for two of our new players and good experience for all, 3) every player was in on at least one victory, and 4) as always, we had fun. Will Cavert had terrific personal success, tying for first place at #1 singles with a 5-1 record. Ted Salk went 2-4 at #2 singles; Chris Idemmili and Courtney Colby were 0-6 at #1 doubles, a tough assignment; Neal Schuster and Bryan Gast were 1-5 at #2 doubles; and Heather Purdy and Mike Olson were 2-4 at #3 doubles. In quads matches, the first team of Will, Ted, Chris, and Courtney went 2-4, while Neal, Bryan, Heather, and Mike were 0-6.
We took two teams to Madison for this event, entering one in each division. The Division 1 team of Ted, Will, Chris, and Courtney finished 2nd in the undergraduate standings to Wash. U., and 5th overall, with a record of 9-4. (6-4 in the eleven-team round robin, losing to Chicago, Illinois, Iowa, and Iowa State, and then 3-0 in the playoff bracket of the 5th-8th place teams, avenging themselves upon Iowa State and also gaining repeat wins over Minnesota and Northwestern.) Our Div. 2 team of Neal, Mike, Justin Kwong, and Brendan Foote finished in last place, but it was one of the strongest last places you can get, as they did win four games (4-10 record), and their overall point total was better than that of half the field -- they won some games by large margins, but couldn't quite close the sale on close games, losing several by only a few points. (Once, to their credit, by correcting a scorekeeper who had them winning a game when actually the score was tied.) For this team, and especially for Justin and Brendan making their intercollegiate tournament debuts, this event was all about gaining valuable experience--and, as always, having some fun!
This was a nice event for us, giving seven of our younger players a chance to compete in a field only of other first or second-year quizbowlers. We entered two teams, one at full strength and the other shorthanded at three players. Carleton A, which was Neal, Mike, Bryan and Courtney, went 8-2 to finish second in the tournament to Wisconsin, which won the tournament (9-1) and was responsible for both Carleton losses--once by only 5 points. Carleton B--Brant Beyer, Brendan, and Mari Konkel making her intercollegiate quizbowl debut--finished 4-6. Brant, who we are very glad to see returned to us now from a term in the Czech republic, tied for first place among all players in individual scoring, and Neal was fourth; each received a book award for thus placing on the Minnesota Junior Bird all-star team. Mari led the tournament in most tossups without a single neg., with 14. Eric drove the van and shared a moderating assignment with Shane Ewert, who we are also glad to see returned from a term in Europe.
This tournament was actually the first time that the 2000/01 Carleton "A" team of Gabe Lyon, Shane Ewert, Ted, and Will, ever played together as a unit, and we liked the results. In a 64-team field, this Carleton team was one of 16 to make the playoffs, going 10-3 in a divisional round-robin before being ousted in a single-elim playoff by Michigan, the eventual tournament champion. Balanced scoring by all four players proved to be a hallmark of this team. The entire trip was memorable and fun, as we went a day early, flying (with coach Eric) to New York and spending a day there with Carleton quizbowl alumni Andy Felton, Cheryl Klein, and Katy Beebe, before heading to Philadelphia on the train. (Andy, Cheryl, and Katy coming too, as tournament moderators.) We got to see such New York sights as Times Square, Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Andy's illegal squat in Spanish Harlem. Thursday dinner at an Indian restaurant was followed by a visit to a German beer bar (happy 21st birthday, Ted!), and then on to Andy's for some question-playing. We again stayed with Katy and Cheryl in Brooklyn on Saturday night after returning from Philadelphia before catching Sunday's flight back to Minnesota.
We took two teams to the annual Elvis tournament, always an enjoyable fixture on our schedule. Carleton Africanus Major (Gabe, Shane, Ted, and Will) went 10-4 and took 3rd place in the tournament. Carleton Africanus Minor (Brant, Chris, Courtney, and Neal) was the "A" team's enantiomer, going 4-10. Shane got all-star recognition by finishing 5th in the tournament in individual scoring average. Carleton A.Maj. split their two games with the teams finishing above them in the final standings, Michigan and Iowa State. While the cheap motel we found to stay in seemed surprised that we wanted rooms for the whole night, not just for a couple of hours, it was really perfectly nice. Eric barely remembers the whole trip, actually, since it began only a few hours after he finished moving his family into a new house, and he was exhausted to begin with. (Note: we must have a team member or two certified to drive college vehicles before NAQT nationals in St. Louis, 'cause I'm NOT going all that way as the only driver!)
It took some tense white-knuckle driving through drifting snow with zero visibility to get us there, but success crowned our efforts in the end: two championships! Our Division I team (Gabe, Shane, Ted, and Will) won Carleton's third straight Midwest Sectional Undergraduate Championship, with its automatic invitation to the NAQT ICT, and finished third overall, behind Chicago and Wisconsin. It was the third straight weekend that this team went 10-4 in a tournament. The nice balance on this team means that we never really know who will be the top scorer: here it was Ted; the weekend before, it was Shane; the weekend before that, Will. And Gabe was right behind Ted at this one. (Overall, individually, Ted was 8th in the tournament, Gabe 10th, Shane 14th, and Will 17th.) We are also bringing a Div. II team to Nationals, thanks to the Div. II championship won by Brant, Bryan, Chris, and Neal. These guys went 7-3 in a round robin, to enter playoff ladder-play in the 4th position, but were perfect thereafter, moving up the ladder with wins to take over 3rd, then 2nd, then 1st, and another 15-point win over Chicago to hold onto 1st for the title: 11-3 for the day. Chris ranked 6th individually among the Div. II players. Because we'd loaded up our top Div. II team, our second Div. II team, of Courtney, Mike, and Mari, was left a bit under-gunned, and went 1-9 in round robin play followed by 2-2 in ladder play, for an overall 3-11 and 9th place out of 11. On Friday night, and for a round Saturday morning while waiting for late teams to arrive out of the bad weather, Iowa ran a "trash" tournament which we all played, and which was a kick. We played as two person teams. Chris we always knew would be good on trash; Will powered his team to victory over three others on the all-audio round; Ted and Shane revealed hitherto unsuspected reservoirs of hidden trash knowledge, and just kept winning; and even Eric had a grand moment when he "thirtied" a TV theme songs bonus by pulling "Baretta" -- a show he'd never seen an episode of -- out of some dark place as a wild guess that turned out to be right. The championships the next day left everyone in a festive mood for a fancy Chinese buffet before leaving Iowa City for the late night return home.
Our own tournament ran pretty smoothly, though about an hour behind schedule by the end. Carleton seniors Ted and Will, playing as Carleton Moo Goo Gai Pan, won the 22-team event, losing only once on the day (to a strong St. Olaf team), winning the Peanut Butter Division with a 9-1 record, and then defeating an Iowa State foursome and a Minnesota twosome to take the title. Three other Carleton teams were entered. Carleton Mongolian Beef (Bryan, Mike, Charley Huberty, and Kevin Clair) finished 7th, an impressive placement for a team consisting entirely of players in their first season of intercollegiate play, and featuring two players--Charlie and Kevin--appearing in their first tournaments for Carleton. This team finished third in the Jelly Division with a 7-3 record that included giving the Minnesota team that wound up finishing 2nd their only round robin loss. They then--after Charley had to leave--lost two playoff rounds, resulting in their final placement at #7. Carleton Orange Chicken (Chris and Courtney) finished 13th overall: 4-6 in their round robin, followed also by two playoff losses. General Tso's Carleton (Brant and Heather; Brant solo for a couple of rounds while Heather did a work shift) finished 20th: 1-9 in their round robin; 2-10 after playoffs. Team members Andrew Eppig, Gabe, Neal, and Shane, and alumni Andrew Ulland, all helped moderate the event, for which we are very grateful.
Falling during our spring break, we managed to get our top team to ACF Nationals nonetheless. Eric, Will and Shane drove to Chicago where we picked up Gabe at the train depot and then spent the night in Indiana before continuing on the next day to Michigan where we met Ted at the Lansing airport and then on to Ann Arbor for the tournament. In a tough field of 16 mostly top teams on particularly challenging questions, Carleton officially placed 9th, with an overall record of 8-3. (We went 4-3 record in a divisional round robin, which left us in a three-way tie for third in the division: Carleton beat Kentucky, which beat Chicago, which beat Carleton. The tie was resolved by points scored, by which we were third, so Kentucky and Chicago went into the upper bracket for playoffs while Carleton was left to win the lower bracket, sweeping the rest of our games.) Our three losses came to teams from Michigan, Virginia, and Chicago--all programs currently ranked in the top five nationally. I can't resist adding that, though Carleton was ranked 26th in the country in the most recent poll (for what that's worth, which isn't much), during this tournament we beat five teams ranked higher in the poll, and finished ahead of four of them in the final standings: #9 Texas, #13 Wisconsin, #14 Oklahoma, and #23 Maryland. Not that *that's* necessarily incredibly significant either, but our placement in this elite tournament was pretty satisfying, and actually gives us more to crow about than a 9th-place finish usually would. Afterwards we feasted at the same Indian restaurant at which we had celebrated our 1999 undergraduate national championship. We like Ann Arbor. Gabe, Shane, Ted and Will's overall record this year when playing all together now moves to 38-15.
After a Thursday evening departure from campus, we spent the night in an Econolodge near Iowa City, and then on to St. Louis the next day, where the students checked into a Holiday Inn while coach was put up at NAQT headquarters in the Sheraton. Our results in the prestigious national championship tournament was not all that we'd hoped, but respectable, given the high quality of the field top to bottom. In the 36-team Division I field, Ted, Will, Shane, and Gabe finished 21st (though 12th in total points scored.) Shane led us in scoring again, with all four finishing in the top 85 as individuals--something true of only 5 other teams. In the 24-team Division II field, Chris, Brant, Neal, and Bryan finished tied for 17th. Chris lead this team in scoring, and all four finished in the top 54 as individuals--something true of only one other team. (In other words, Bryan was the second highest-scoring #4 player in the Div. II tournament.) Besides playing, it was nice seeing alumna Emily at the tournament, and dining with her at an Ethiopian restaurant -- outdoor cafe style, which felt very good to these Minnesotans tired of a long winter. A Saturday evening post-tourney expedition was made to view the Arch and St. Louis waterfront.
A couple of hours after Ted passed his comps ("nothing but frisbee for me now for the rest of the year") Carleton's "A" team flew east again for a 17-team one day marathon (18 matches!) at Princeton, and took second place, behind the University of Chicago. (It was a nice midwestern raid on the eastern circuit!) Shane, Will, Ted, and Gabe went 15-1 in the full round robin, beating Chicago enroute, as well as eastern powers such as Yale, Penn, Swarthmore, and others, while losing only to Florida Atlantic. Meanwhile, Chicago also finished 15-1 in the round robin and then beat Carleton twice in the finals to take the title. With our usual balance, all four Carleton players averaged 20 points per game or more, with Shane averaging 40. Sunday was spent viewing some of the sights of Philadelphia, before an evening flight back to rainy Minnesota. The largely-successful tournament was a fitting close to the Carleton careers of seniors Ted and Will, who will be missed!
