PHAT VIII (12/5/14 at South Burlington, VT)

[kcommo]

The Vermont-NEA Scholars’ Bowl is excited to announce it will be holding its eighth annual Pre-Holiday Academic Tournament (PHAT VIII) on Friday, December 5, at South Burlington High School in South Burlington, Vt. This tournament is open to all high school academic teams and will be played on NAQT questions (Set IS-137A), making it an opportunity to qualify your school for NAQT’s national tournament in Chicago.

This event is New England's largest quiz bowl tournament, with more than 60 teams from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts attending each of the last two years. We're seeking to further extend our geographic reach this season, so we hope your school will consider joining us for this regional meeting of the minds.

The format will follow official NAQT rules (http://www.naqt.com/rules.html) except that rounds will be time limited. The schedule will include eight rounds of matches and, if the number of teams allows it, all teams will play in every round.

If there is sufficient interest, we will again run a separate novice bracket for less-experienced players. Teams in this bracket will be ineligible for the overall championship but will play all their games against other teams of newcomers, including separate playoffs. The novice bracket is primarily intended for freshmen and sophomores, though upperclassmen may participate if they are not part of your school's regular varsity lineup and they have not played in a tossup-bonus tournament prior to this school year.

The entry fee is $35 per team for out-of-state schools, and schools will be initially limited to a maximum of two teams, varsity and/or novice. Additional teams will be accepted if the number of rooms and readers allows it, with preference given to schools that can bring extra volunteers to help read matches and/or keep score.

This year to simplify the registration process we are taking sign-ups via Google Form. Visit the following link to submit your information: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DG4cQj ... =send_form

The registration deadline is December 1.

Interested teams should note that participation might require them to leave school early. Check-in will be held from 3:45 to 3:55 p.m. and matches will begin promptly at 4:15 p.m. The competition will end at approximately 9:15 p.m.

A dinner break will be included in the schedule and the host team from South Burlington is organizing a pizza pre-order at a price of $20 for a large pizza, four sodas and four desserts. However, pizza will not be sold on the day of the tournament so schools not participating in the pre-order will be responsible for bringing their own food or visiting one of the several nearby restaurants. To place a pizza order, email South Burlington coach Eric Stone at estone (at) sbschools (doc) net.

Because we are unable to hire readers for this tournament, the coaches of all participating teams will be expected to moderate matches so that we can keep all teams playing in all rounds. We will have a quick rules meeting to go over the basics and answer questions, but if you are new to NAQT format please familiarize yourself and your team with the rules (http://www.naqt.com/rules.html) ahead of time. Also, if you know of anyone (players' parents, teachers, former players, etc.) who might be willing to volunteer to read matches or keep score, please let me know and invite them to come. The more staffers we have, the smoother things will run.

We also ask teams that have buzzer systems to bring them along to help us make sure we have buzzers for every room.

Finally, please note that all payment is due on the date of the tournament and that we do not accept purchase orders. Checks should be made out to the Vermont-NEA Scholars' Bowl.

If you have any questions or you cannot register using the Google form, please contact me, Kevin Commo, at kcommo (at) scholarsbowl (dot) org.

[Maury Island incident]

Most Massachusetts teams probably will not attend, since there is a set conflict with Central MA Fall.

[kcommo]

I actually had the set wrong initially. It's 137A, not 141. But the issue still stands as it's a conflict with MIT.

[kcommo]

Right now we're looking at a field of (updated 12/1):

South Burlington (VT): 5 varsity, 1 novice
Montpelier (VT): 1 varsity, 3 novice
John Stark (NH): 3 varsity
Champlain Valley (VT): 2 varsity, 1 novice
Mt. Abraham (VT): 1 varsity
Portsmouth Christian (NH): 2 varsity
Rice Memorial (VT): 2 varsity, 2 novice
Burlington (VT): 2 varsity, 1 novice
Ticonderoga (NY): 1 varsity, 1 novice
Crown Point (NY): 1 varsity, 1 novice
South Glens Falls (NY): 1 varsity, 1 novice
Middlebury (VT): 4 varsity, 2 novice
Fair Haven (VT): 2 varsity, 1 novice
Colebrook (NH): 1 varsity, 1 novice
Mt. Mansfield (VT): 1 varsity
Essex (VT), 2 varsity, 2 novice
Colton-Pierrepont (NY), 1 varsity
Missisquoi (VT), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Northampton (MA), 1 varsity
Queensbury (NY), 1 varsity, 1 novice
North Country (VT), 2 varsity, 1 novice
Westport (NY), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Spaulding (VT), 1 varsity
Winooski (VT), 1 varsity
Emma Willard (NY), 1 varsity
Hanover (NH), 2 varsity
Woodstock (VT), 1 varsity
Total: 44 varsity, 22 novice

[kcommo]

After a couple of dropouts because of weather fears, we ended up with 60 teams (38 varsity and 22 novice) from 24 schools for yesterday's tournament.

Burlington A won the championship, coming back from 265-125 down in the last six questions to defeat Champlain Valley A in the final 300-280. South Burlington A also had a big comeback in the third-place game to top Northampton 335-270. Those fourth schools, plus the rest of our quarterfinalists (Essex A, Mt. Mansfield, Rice A and Rice B) and the B playoff winner, Mt. Abraham should have qualified for HSNCT. Mt. Abraham was also the top small school.

Montpelier C won our novice title, beating Essex C 185-170 on the last tossup.

Phil Holt of South Burlington was the top scorer.

Full stats can be found here: http://www.scholarsbowl.org/PHAT14_standings.html