New Jersey NAQT Championship take 2 (Hackensack, NJ) 4/25/09

[ChathamNJ]

On behalf of our co-host Bergen County Academies, Chatham High School is happy to announce that we will be running the New Jersey NAQT State Championships on Saturday, April 25.

Bergen County Academies will provide the physical location as well as breakfast.
Chatham HS will provide the scheduling, logistics, and advertising - so direct any questions to me, sfineman AT chatham HYPHEN nj DOT org.

In order to have all schools able to compete, we are requiring that every school provide one of the following:
- One coach per team who is willing to read during bye rounds, or
- One full-time reader for every two teams (who would NOT read for teams from the schools they represent).

Scheduling and playoffs will be done in accordance with official NAQT event expectations, so each team will be guaranteed at least six games, only wins and losses will determine who moves into the top bracket, and some form of round-robin playoff will determine the champion (likely similar to what BOAT did). Exact format will depend on the number of teams present.

Individual stats will be kept, but we plan to concentrate all available resources on running the games themselves and minimizing byes, so stats will not be compiled or posted until a couple days after the tournament.

Unaffiliated readers from the NY/NJ quizbowl community are more than welcome to join us - we'll reimburse your transport (to a point) and happily feed you. The more outside readers we get, the fewer bye rounds we'll need.

The start time for the event may change based on the number of teams, but until further notice please plan to arrive at BCA by 8:00 am.

Cost: $50/team, $10 discount per working set of buzzers.

Due to short notice, please bring checks (made out to "CHS") or cash on the morning of the tournament, I will sign receipts that should work for reimbursement. If this does not work for you, please let me know.

Feel free to post in this thread, but I will not schedule teams until I have received an email from a faculty member or designated parent. Or a check.

The absolute deadline for entry is 12:00 noon, Thursday 4/23.

Special thanks go out to Guy Rabner of Livingston and Ed Powers of St. Joseph's, who went to great lengths trying to secure their own buildings, and of course to Mike Zinsmeister of SHP for starting this whole thing (even if he couldn't prevent the flooding) and making all the photocopies.

So who's in?

[TheCzarMan]

Bloomfield will still be coming.

[ChathamNJ]

This was not explicitly addressed in my previous post:

Although teams may have registered for the original date of this tournament, please know that Mr. Zinsmeister of SHP will be returning checks. Given the new date and cost structure, I am asking that all teams register anew for this tournament, regardless of whether you were on the list for the March 21 tournament.

Thank you.

[SHP Pirate]

Checks will be mailed back to registered schools on Monday, April 20. (The first day we return from Easter holiday.) Checks have not been deposited.

[Edward Powers]

Congratulations and thanks to Chatham and Bergen for all of their efforts to revive this Championship, and to Seton Hall Prep for all of its previous efforts on its behalf as well.

Saint Joe's will be there with 2 teams and 1 buzzer.

Ed Powers
Coach
SJHS Academic Team
Metuchen, NJ

[ChathamNJ]

Early Field Update:

Confirmed:
-Bergen County Academies (1-3 teams)
-Chatham (1)
-St. Joseph's (2)
-Livingston (3)

Expressed interest:
-Bloomfield
-MAST
-Millburn

[ChathamNJ]

Two things:
1) I've added Livingston to the list of teams, and
2) if anyone would like a registration form suitable for submission to Accounting Departments, just email me and I'll send you one.

[SHP Pirate]

All checks sent to SHP were returned yesterday.

- MTZ

[ChathamNJ]

NAQT has informed us that due to the absence of a Metro NYC "State" Championship, teams from New York State will be allowed to compete in the NJ event. All New York teams are welcome to join us; please read the preceding messages in this thread for more information.

If you've already made plans to attend the upstate event at Cornell, please don't cancel them - Cayuga's waters are far more scenic than the Hackensack River.

Field update:

-Bergen County Academies (2)
-Chatham (1)
-Columbia (1)
-Half Hollow Hills West (1)
-Livingston (3)
-Millburn (1)
-St. Joseph's (2)

Entries will be accepted until noon Thursday.

[jonpin]

NAQT has informed us that due to the absence of a Metro NYC "State" Championship, teams from New York State will be allowed to compete in the NJ event. All New York teams are welcome to join us; please read the preceding messages in this thread for more information.

If you've already made plans to attend the upstate event at Cornell, please don't cancel them - Cayuga's waters are far more scenic than the Hackensack River.

Field update:

-Bergen County Academies (2)
-Chatham (1)
-Half Hollow Hills West (1)
-Livingston (3)
-Millburn (1)
-St. Joseph's (2)

Entries will be accepted until noon Thursday.

If we don't get past 12 teams, are you planning to do just a straight round-robin?

[ChathamNJ]

If we don't get past 12 teams, are you planning to do just a straight round-robin?

Yes. Right now the numbers are just right - we have 11 teams and 4 full-time mods, so 11 rounds with one bye team gives us 5 rooms.

Registration is still open until noon tomorrow (as tempting as it is to dictatorially close things up, that just wouldn't be right :) )

[ChathamNJ]

Congratulations to St. Joseph's High School, the 2009 New Jersey State Champions.

They finished 9-1 in the round-robin, beating second-place Columbia by a full game.

A full SQBS report will be filed as soon as all the information gets into a computer. Records were kept by hand during the tournament, as all available staff was busy in the tournament rooms.

Watson Ladd of Bergen County Academies was the top individual scorer.

[jonpin]

Just to supplement Coach Fineman's post, here are the top-to-bottom team standings:
1. St. Joseph A 9-1 (lost to Hills)
2. Columbia 8-2 (lost to SJ-A and Berg-B)
3. Bergen Academies A 7-3 (lost to SJ-A, Col and Hills)
3. Bergen Academies B 7-3 (lost to SJ-A, Berg-A and Liv-C)
3. Half Hollow Hills West 7-3 (lost to Col, Berg-B and Mill)
6. Livingston A 5-5
7. Millburn 4-6
7. Livingston C 4-6
9. St Joseph B 2-8
10. Chatham 1-9
10. Livingston B 1-9

There were plenty of hard-fought close games, many decided on the last two tossups, and at least two games that went into overtime. I'd like to thank Coach Z for the work he put into this tourney before having to cancel it, and Coach Fineman for a great job running things today. I've got the scoresheets and a laptop; all I need now is an hour of free time, so hopefully I'll have stats posted sometime tomorrow.

[Self-incompatibility in plants]

I apparently don't know New Jersey Quiz Bowl as well as I thought I did, so could someone please tell me who St. Joseph is, and also how they beat Bergen A.

edit:typo

[SHP Pirate]

Congratulations to St. Joe's! I cannot say that I am entirely surprised. St. Joe's is a solid team who plays the vast majority of their matches in NJ and NY. I think that everyone (myself included) crowned BCA as champs long ago. This just goes to prove that any team on any day ...

I wish that we had been able to host the tournament at The Prep. Maybe next year! Thanks and congratulations to Jon Pinyan and Steve Fineman for hosting this event when we no longer were able.

[dtaylor4]

Given that were undoubtedly plenty of packets, why wasn't there an advantaged final?

[jonpin]

Steve Fineman decided upon the format and announced at the start that ties would obviously be played off, but that would be it. My guess is that part of the reason behind this was that due to a small number of staff, it actually took 12 rounds (instead of 11). If there had been one or two fewer upsets, holding an advantage final may have required a series of tiebreakers beforehand (see BOAT), leaving no margin for error on packet mishaps. In the same vein, this was being run barebones, so the fact that we ran reasonably timely was by no means guaranteed.

As to the Bergen teams: We were missing some regulars due to field trips; each team had 3 players.

Here's the boxscore for St Joe A vs Bergen A:
St Joseph A 220, Bergen A 200
Jack 1-3-0 45; Victor 1-1-0 25; Jesse 0-1-1 5; Kyle 1-1-0 25; Bonuses 120/9
Watson 1-5-1 60; Jake 0; Josh 0; Bonuses 140/6
It was 130-40 at halftime and 205-35 after 12; Bergen did well to close the gap, but St Joe had built up quite a lead. I don't know if Watson was off his game (if anyone could consider 60 points to be "off their game") or a wonky packet (Side note to NAQT: As a general statement, your packets of hilariously bad distribution are not a good thing. I'd give a specific instance, but of course I'm not allowed to, and by the time I am allowed to, I'll have probably forgotten.) or any number of things, but you gotta win the games to win the tournament, and St Joseph did that. They won a well-deserved state championship.

The real surprise to me was Columbia, who I hadn't seen at all (and I think the team said they didn't remember seeing them in the fall either). They spent a good part of the day unbeaten before falling 250-170 to St Joe and 315-175 to Bergen B. Still a strong second.

Also, not to be forgotten in the collection of thanks is the official BCA advisor, Dan Baker, who did the internal legwork to get us approved for hosting this event on short notice including room reservations and breakfast.

[The Falcon Flock]

I apparently don't know New Jersey Quiz Bowl as well as I thought I did, so could someone please tell me who St. Joseph is, and also how they beat Bergen A.

edit:typo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joseph ... ew_Jersey)

[sjhsquizbowl]

To be honest, the SJ A-BCA A game was also St. Joe's worst game of the day. We found the bonuses to be poorly distributed, as well. Not only in terms of topic but in terms of difficulty. Jack was having an off-game and scored well below his average.

[The Falcon Flock]

Any idea on when stats are going to be posted?

[jonpin]

Full results are now available here: http://results.scobo.net/BergenCountyAcademies

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

This might not sound like a big deal, but coming from a state where the majority of quizbowl teams are absolutely terrible, having all the schools at this tournament with PPB over 10 (and in all but one case, over 12 PPB) is really impressive to me.

[The Falcon Flock]

Why compare PPB as opposed to totals? And as for Delaware teams being terrible, I'm sure most teams here are terrible to someone.