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Report by Sarah: Kyle Willett, Jack Rousseau, Adam Carr, John Morse, Max Parrish, Sarah Horowitz, and Richard Leavelle '08 (in his intercollegiate debut) traveled to Iowa City for this two-day theme tournament for eight players, an annual fixture in our schedule. The team was fourth after the first day of competition, and was placed in the first bracket for the second day of competition. However, because the directors had decided not to lock the brackets, they were passed at the last second by the Michigan State team, which had been playing in the second flight, and ended up placing fifth in the tournament. There were numerous good packets in this tournament: Sarah was thrilled about the Children's Literature packet, Kyle dominated the physics packet with support from Adam, and Jack and John once again proved their incredible knowledge of trash. And Adam and Max proved that quizbowl guys do know something about fashion, each scoring two tossups in the fashion and style packet. Other good packets included a poetry packet, a video game packet, a Starcraft-themed packet, a packet with boni all about Germany, and of course the Africa packet written by Carleton qb alum Kevin Clair '04. In the lightening rounds, both Kyle and Adam made it to the finals, and ended up sixth and seventh respectively. Special thanks to Susannah Lewis '05 who helped drive the team to Iowa City and, because we were missing a player, volunteered to play for the team, making valuable contributions on the Children's Lit, Judiciary, and Germany packets.
Not an actual tournament, but rather an informal get-together of players in the area to get in some extra competition during an unusually lightly-scheduled Fall in the upper Midwest, 28 people formed into 9 teams and played a round-robin on recent questions from a couple of other tournaments. Patrick Hope, John, Jonah Ostroff, and Rebecca Ferrell went 7-1, as did Eric H. playing solo (losing to the above). St. Thomas's Paul Drube, also playing solo, went 6-2, followed by a five-person Macalester team and a three-person Carleton alumni team (Courtney Colby, Chris Idemmili, Mike Olson) at 4-4, then two 3-5 teams: one of two Grinnell players, a Beloit player, and Iowa State alumnus Chris Mayfield, and another of two from St. Thomas plus Carleton's Neal Schuster. Then Carleton's Max, Adam, Richard (for some of the rounds), and Kyle (one round), at 2-5, and Carleton's Jack (most of the way), Sarah, and Nate Pysno at 0-7. The event did what it was supposed to do, giving us a day of play, followed by pizza at B&L's for a large bunch of us.
WE WON! Our all-sophomore team of Pat, Max, Adam, and John ran the table, going 12-0 in a double round-robin among seven teams to take the championship at this event by a four-game margin, while the Carleton team of Kyle, Sarah, Jack, and Richard went 8-4 to finish third, splitting their matches with St. Thomas, also 8-4 but with a greater overall point total. Individually, Pat was 2nd in the tournament in tossup average, Max 4th, and Kyle 5th, each winning a book choice for their high placement. Sarah doesn't neg much, but did here neg herself out of a "Sense and Sensibility" tossup, much to her chagrin after a few more words were read. Little Taipei has raised prices slightly since our last vist, but is still a great bargain.
We earned invitations to the ICT in both Division I and II when our Division I team of Kyle, Jack, Max and Pat finished second (9-4), and our Division II team of John, Richard, Nate Pysno, and Peter Berry, the latter two playing in their first intercollegiate tournaments, finished first (10-1). Sarah, Adam, and Keith Purrington finished third in Division I (3-9). Pat was second in individual scoring in Division I, and Richard was third in individual scoring in Division II.
WE WON! And finished 2nd, to boot -- a good tournament for us. Our surprising three-person novice team of Richard, Nate, and Peter, playing as Carleton War, compiled a record of 10-1 to win the tournament in a field of 15 teams, with their only loss coming by a 5-point margin. Their final game, deciding the championship, was a 325-300 win over Carleton Death -- Pat and Jack -- who had been undefeated to that point and the tournament's dominant team statistically. Death finished 9-1. Carleton Pestilence (Max and John) gave Carleton a third team in the top five, finishing 5th, and Kyle playing solo as Carleton Famine finished 11th. Kyle was second in the tournament in individual scoring, winning a book prize as an all-star, as did Pat, but Kyle seemed prouder of also receiving a Calvin and Hobbes book prize for "winning" the most-negs title over St. Thomas's Paul Drube, 11 negs to 10. Nate and Peter have now played in two intercollegiate quiz tournaments ever, and won them both, which is GREAT, though it probably gives them a decidedly skewed impression regarding the difficulty of winning titles.
For the second weekend in a row we returned from a competition in Iowa with Carleton teams having placed both 1st and 2nd. At this nice little tournament, in a seven team field our team of Max, John, and Adam went 7-1 as champions, losing only their final match, a 10-point decision, to the second-place team, Carleton's Richard and Sarah, who finished 6-2. Richard led the tournament in individual scoring, a nice achievement for our freshman. Max was second. Good effort, all!
We entered four teams in our own tournament, and one of them, Carleton Seed of Chucky (John and Pat) went 12-0 for the day to win it. Each Carleton team placed in the top half of the 21-team field; specifically: Carleton Win a Date With Tad Hamilton (Adam and Max) went 8-4 and finished 5th; Carleton White Chicks (Nate, Peter, Richard) went 8-3 and finished 6th; and Carleton Princess Diaries 2 (Jack and Sarah) went 7-4 and finished 10th. Kyle was out of the state for the event, but participated anyway by giving names to the Carleton teams and also to the two divisions into which the field was first divided: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Plan 9 From Outer Space. 5th tournament title of the year -- not shabby.
An excellent showing for our Division I team of Kyle, Jack, Max and Pat, who returned a whoppin' big trophy to campus as runners-up for the undergraduate national championship. In order to reach the championship final Carleton prevailed 250-170 in a high-pressure tiebreaker playoff match against Harvard, who had defeated us soundly earlier in the tournament. This put Carleton into the final against Matt Wiener of Virginia Commonwealth University, who beat us 255-205 in a close match involving six lead changes. The two teams split the tossups evenly, 11 each, but VCU scored 50 more points on bonus questions to take the title. Carleton placed 11th in the overall competition mixing Div. I undergrad teams with those containing grad students. Pat won an individual trophy as a tournament All-Star, being the third-ranking individual undergraduate scorer. Our Div. II entry of John, Peter, and Richard was handicapped by having to play short-handed (with Nate abroad in Europe this term), and finished 25th of 32 (6-7), but gained valuable experience playing in the tough field of a top national tournament. Sarah and Eric came along as moderators. New Orleans was a great site for the competition, and we had a chance to explore a bit before the tournament. Thanks to Richard's mother for driving over from Mississippi to watch the matches (and help with the logistics of ground transportation, and share in the post-tournament feasting on N'awlins seafood), and thanks also to Courtney, Mike, and Penny for helping with airport pickups and retrieval.
After no fewer than three tournaments we had at one time planned to attend this term wound up being cancelled by the hosts (frustrating!), a bunch of us substituted for the real thing by attending a nice day long informal scrimmage organized by Paul Drube at the University of St. Thomas. Thanks, Paul! This was informal enough that team records on the day are somewhat obscure, but Kyle, Jack, Max, John, and Peter went, along with alumni Courtney Colby and Mike Olson, and coach Eric, who played solo and went undefeated among six teams playing not quite a double round robin. Our season thus ends, with fewer competitions than normal, but with a very high percentage of success, as chronicled above. Ave atque vale to our graduating seniors Sarah and Kyle.
