PHAT IX (12/4/15 at South Burlington, VT HS) IS-151A

[kcommo]

The Vermont-NEA Scholars’ Bowl is pleased to announce it will be holding its ninth annual Pre-Holiday Academic Tournament (PHAT IX) on Friday, December 4, 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-151A).

This event is New England's largest quiz bowl tournament, with at least 60 teams from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts attending each of the last three years. We would be happy 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 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 teams 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.

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/1suYZC4 ... =send_form

The registration deadline is November 30.

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 (dot) 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. 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.

[kcommo]

The field so far (updated 12/1):

South Burlington (VT) 4 varsity, 2 novice
CVU (VT) 2 varsity, 2 novice
Burlington (VT) 2 varsity, 1 novice
Mt. Mansfield (VT) 2 varsity
Mt. Abraham (VT) 1 varsity, 1 novice
Missisquoi (VT) 1 varsity, 1 novice
Rice Memorial (VT) 1 varsity, 2 novice
John Stark (NH) 2 varsity, 1 novice
Crown Point (NY) 1 varsity, 1 novice
Schuylerville (NY) 1 varsity
Emma Willard (NY) 1 varsity
Ticonderoga (NY) 2 varsity, 1 novice
Portsmouth Christian (NH) 2 varsity, 1 novice
Essex (VT) 3 varsity, 1 novice
Spaulding (VT) 2 varsity
Lamoille (VT) 1 varsity
South Glens Falls (NY), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Middlebury (VT), 3 varsity, 3 novice
Northampton (MA), 2 varsity
Westport (NY), 1 varsity , 1 novice
Cabot (VT), 1 varsity
BFA-St. Albans (VT), 1 varsity
Colton-Pierrepont (NY), 1 varsity
Queensbury (NY), 2 varsity
Winooski (VT), 1 novice
North Country (VT), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Fair Haven (VT), 1 varsity
St. Johnsbury (VT), 2 varsity
BFA-Fairfax (VT), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Montpelier (VT), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Hanover (NH), 1 varsity
Plymouth (NH), 1 varsity, 1 novice
Total 72 teams (48 varsity, 24 novice)

[kcommo]

So the field above should be more or less final. I'm amazed -- and a bit intimidated -- to think this is going to be a 72-team tournament. But I thrilled to see this kind of interest, too. Nineteen of our 24 active programs in Vermont are competing, as well as teams in four other leagues in the surrounding states.

[kcommo]

We ended up with 70 teams -- 48 varsity and 22 novice -- from 32 schools for this event. Burlington A won with an 8-0 record, surviving its toughest test in the quarterfinals against Mt. Mansfield, 400-250, before defeating Essex A in the semifinals and CVU A in the final, 440-245. Rice Memorial A finished third after narrowly falling to CVU in the semis. Middlebury A placed fifth, making it the highest-finishing small school in the field.

CVU swept the novice bracket, with its D team beating its C team in the final.

After past experiences with data entry dramatically slowing us down, we kept it simple last night so I'll try to get all the data put together and posted before the end of the weekend.

Finally I should give major recognition to the team from Northampton, which was among the most talented in the tournament. They honestly pointed out right away that many of their students had already played played the same set at AMSA and proved very flexible as we came up with a solution. The two players who weren't at AMSA competed as their A team regularly for the prelims, before being joined by a couple of teammates who left the AMSA tournament early for the C playoffs. The remainder of the Northampton students played exhibition matches using old questions.

[kcommo]

Stats are now posted in the database and here: www.scholarsbowl.org/PHAT15final_standings.html

Unfortunately we had a major scoring error in the quarterfinals that resulted in Rice being credited in a win when the final score was actually Hanover 375, Rice 280. It wasn't protested (I didn't find the error until I did the stats this morning) so the results will stand officially, but my apologies to Bill Murphy and his team that this happened.