West Virginia 2012-2013 / Discussion about WV

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

This may be a little longer than intended, beware.

So, even though I don't play for a school in West Virginia, my research tells me that my school, Fisher Catholic, has a long history of playing events in West Virginia (notably the Parkersburg Catholic Invitational), as well as a few other tournaments down there, such as the Parkersburg South tournament. From what I understand, Parkersburg South's tournament doesn't exist anymore, but Parkersburg High ran a tournament as recent as 2011. Does said event still exist, or have plans to exist?

What basically is the state of West Virginia quiz bowl? I see there are many events that use NAQT questions in West Virginia, but many of these said events don't send full statistics and from my understanding use a special format that deviates from standard 20/20. For instance; at Parkersburg Catholic, we played sort of like a four quarter format that sort of goes like this; ten tossups with no bonuses, four tossups with bonuses (don't remember if these bounceback or not), a short worksheet that's housewritten and then they read the remainder of the tossups with no bonuses. My memory of this format isn't the strongest, but I think Fred might have an idea of what I'm talking about and maybe he can correct where I'm wrong. I do know at Parkersburg Catholic they allow five people to play at once. Is this common throughout West Virginia, the game format and number of players, not to mention a very strict recognition rule? I believe at one point or another I recalled seeing that the aforementioned variation is used as the "state format". Perhaps a better question for me to ask would be if four player, standard 20/20 is at all played in West Virginia? Also, why is power-matching so popular? In my personal opinion, I don't think power-matching is the best thing for these tournaments, especially when all but one of the fields at tournaments this past year in West Virginia featured a power of 2 (West Virginia NAQT State), and the finish results get sort of funky in some cases, Like here., where the #7 team in finish had a much higher record than the #6 team, and had actually beat #4 while #6's best win was the team below #7.


Aside from the questions and I guess criticism posed, what does the state look like in terms of competition? Its my understanding Nitro finally sees the graduation of Bruce. Who exactly does Bridgeport graduate? Those two teams appeared to be the two toughest teams in West Virginia last year. Are there any teams to look out for?

A final question; are there any quiz bowl clubs at Marshall or WVU? Are they active at all?

I hope my post isn't taken as offensive nor condescending, as a high school junior I'm obviously in no position to be either, I am simply curious about what's going on in the Mountaineer state, why they appear to be different from everyone else in their quiz bowl practices, etc. I do hope that Fisher can go to more things in West Virginia, but other than the obvious transportation costs, it'd really depend on whether there's a conflict in question sets between a WV event or an event in Ohio, since it appears West Virginia almost exclusively uses NAQT questions and uses a lot of them.

[Great Bustard]

West Virginia has been one of the strongest states in the USA for NHBB the last two years, thanks mainly to Wayne Clark at Parkersburg who has helped a ton with hosting, Shawn Weaver at the West Virginia Academic Coaches Association, a bunch of committed coaches, and Nick Brumfield and Bruce being two of the top history players in the country. We had about 25 teams last year, and will hopefully top 30 this year.

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

West Virginia has been one of the strongest states in the USA for NHBB the last two years, thanks mainly to Wayne Clark at Parkersburg who has helped a ton with hosting, Shawn Weaver at the West Virginia Academic Coaches Association, a bunch of committed coaches, and Nick Brumfield and Bruce being two of the top history players in the country. We had about 25 teams last year, and will hopefully top 30 this year.

How many tournaments does NHBB plan to run in West Virginia, and with what sets?

[AKKOLADE]

I'll break this up in a few posts, since I have soup on the stove.

38 different schools sent (a) team(s) to at least one tournament in the past 3 years, with 29 schools active this past year. There are about 110 high schools in the WVSSAC (quiz bowl isn't associated with that, I just don't feel like going through and counting all the tiny 10 student private schools associated with churches or whatever).

That is a correct summary of the current, normal West Virginia format. It used to be 10 tossups, worksheet, 15 tossups when I played. I actually think the current format is less fair than the previous one, due to giving a greater important to four randomly selected tossups. I don't think the bonuses bounceback. University High School usually runs 20/20. And yeah, 5 per team is normal. The recognition rule is strict, though I hope that it is going to become less so.

Parkersburg South has not ran a tournament in a few years. I basically ran the Parkersburg High School tournaments the last two times they happened. Due to now living in Kentucky and the Parkersburg coach lying to me when telling me the funds would not be used for the NAC - and then telling me they would be for the first time, right before the final match took place - I'm no longer associated with that tournament.

I think Bridgeport graduated one of their two main players (Weston) last month. Charleston Catholic won the overall state championship this past year after beating Bridgeport in the one game overall final.

No teams at Marshall or WVU.

And West Virginia does pretty much only use NAQT. I used HSAPQ there once.

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

Is Bridgeport the only school in West Virgina that knows HSNCT is a thing? When we went to Parkersburg Catholic, a few teams were saying how Parkersburg H.S. was one of the nation's top teams after their performance at "nationals" (NAC) last year.

[AKKOLADE]

It seems many WV teams enjoy nationals they can win games at. Many WV teams aren't that good compared to HSNCT or NSC fields.

[Great Bustard]

West Virginia has been one of the strongest states in the USA for NHBB the last two years, thanks mainly to Wayne Clark at Parkersburg who has helped a ton with hosting, Shawn Weaver at the West Virginia Academic Coaches Association, a bunch of committed coaches, and Nick Brumfield and Bruce being two of the top history players in the country. We had about 25 teams last year, and will hopefully top 30 this year.

How many tournaments does NHBB plan to run in West Virginia, and with what sets?

Probably just one on C set, unless another host comes forward and wants to run B set as well. West Virginia teams can play A set either at the Ohio Championships, the DC area A set, or the Virginia Championships. B set mirrors will be in NE Ohio, DC area, PA and Eastern KY.

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

What's the proposed date and location of C set?

[MahoningQuizBowler]

Parkersburg will host NHBB West Virginia on February 16.

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

The only team from WV that is attending HSNCT is (Charleston) George Washington.

I liked the Bridgeport tournament; except for the fact it didn't cut the comp math out and it also had a "no protests, no exceptions" rule which is very weird. There also weren't advantaged finals. Still had the strict recognition rule and it was straight 20/20.

[AKKOLADE]

At least a team from WV is attending HSNCT again!

[AKKOLADE]

The only team from WV that is attending HSNCT is (Charleston) George Washington.

I liked the Bridgeport tournament; except for the fact it didn't cut the comp math out and it also had a "no protests, no exceptions" rule which is very weird. There also weren't advantaged finals. Still had the strict recognition rule and it was straight 20/20.

Did they happen to produce any PPB on-site or anything?

[Sniper, No Sniping!]

The only team from WV that is attending HSNCT is (Charleston) George Washington.

I liked the Bridgeport tournament; except for the fact it didn't cut the comp math out and it also had a "no protests, no exceptions" rule which is very weird. There also weren't advantaged finals. Still had the strict recognition rule and it was straight 20/20.

Did they happen to produce any PPB on-site or anything?

Sadly not. We did a PPB calculation of our own (at least for our A team), but I don't think that's very useful for you.