RESULTS:Spring HS Classic (4/29/07) @ University of Maryland

[Mike Bentley]

The University of Maryland is pleased to announce its annual Spring High School Classic Tournament. The tournament will be held this year on Sunday, April 29th .

The questions at this house-written tournament will be similar in style to those found at NAQT’s High School National Championship Tournament. As has been the case with our past spring tournaments, each round will consist of 20 pyramidal tossups and up to 20 accompanying bonuses. Update: There will in fact be powers at this tournament.

This year’s tournament will be directed by me, Mike Bentley. Send all registration requests and questions to me via my e-mail, mike000 (at) umd.edu (that’s with three zeros).

There is an initial team cap of 48 teams, which will possibly be expanded if there is enough demand.

Registration Fees:

$50 for the first team from a school.
$40 for each additional team.
-$5 for each working buzzer system.
-$5 per school for registering before March 17th
Minimum Fee Per Team: $35

The question set will be made available for free to any interested team attending the tournament. Teams not attending the tournament can purchase the question set for $15 by contacting me.

As always for our high school tournaments, registration will take place in the large, stadium style lecture hall in the Physics Building at the University of Maryland. More details about the registration time and other logistical concerns will be posted closer to the tournament date.

Hope to see you in April.

Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Maryland Academic Quiz Team

[Mike Bentley]

Here's a little field update:

Pikesville - 1 Team
Archbishop Spalding - 1 Team
Eleanor Roosevelt - 2 Teams

Some other teams have informally told me they are coming.

Remember that the early registration deadline is only about two weeks away.

[Mike Bentley]

The early registration deadline is Saturday for any school wishing to receive $5 off. I'll be posting another field update after the deadline.

And just to add some substance, here's the current field:
Pikesville (1)
Archbishop Spalding (1)
Elenaor Roosevelt (2)
Reservoir (3)
Woodson High School (2)
Mount Vernon High School (1)

[Mike Bentley]

Here is the current field:

Pikesville (1)
Eleanor Roosevelt (2)
Reservoir (3)
Woodson High School (2)
Mount Vernon High School (1)
Calvert Hall College High School (2)
Gonzaga High School (1)
Paint Branch High School (1)

Informally:
Stone Bridge High School (1 or 2)
GDS (around 2)

If you have already registered and your name is not on the list, please contact me immediately so that I can rectify the situation.

We would appreciate schools that plan on coming to at least send us an informal message that they will be attending so that we can better plan the tournament. We will be accepting registration until at least the Wednesday before the tournament (April 25th). Remember, contact me at [email protected] to register for the tournament.

[STPickrell]

Loudoun High School (1 or 2)

Is that Loudoun County or Valley?

[Mike Bentley]

Loudoun High School (1 or 2)

Is that Loudoun County or Valley?

Whoops, that school is actually Stone Bridge. I read the e-mail address domain and not the message at the bottom of the registration e-mail.

[dawgpound]

Stone Bridge will be there as long as my trip request gets approved (which I will know for sure when we return from Spring Break on Monday). I plan on bringing 2 teams as long as my players don't have a change of heart. I will update Monday. Thanks for everyone's patience.

[Mike Bentley]

We have decided that we will actually be placing powers in this tournament, and the announcement has been changed to reflect this.

[Mike Bentley]

With about two weeks to go until the tournament, our field has expanded substantially:

Registered Teams:
Pikesville (1)
Elenaor Roosevelt (2)
Reservoir (3)
Woodson High School (2)
Mount Vernon High School (1)
Calvert Hall College High School (2)
Gonzaga High School (1)
Paint Branch High School (1)
Stone Bridge (2)
Howard (1+)
Hammond (1)
Maggie Walker (3, maybe 4)
Centennial (2)
Whitman (1+)
C.H. Flowers (1)

Informally:
GDS (2)

Total Teams: Around 26

There are also a few other teams that I have heard will probably be attending but have yet to formally register. We will be accepting registration until Saturday, April 28th at 5:00 PM or until we reach 48 teams. Remember, to register please e-mail me at [email protected].

[Mike Bentley]

Due to a limited number of moderators, from here on out we are requiring that teams who register more than one team from this point forward to also provide a moderator for each additional team that they register. We will provide an additional $5 discount to additional teams that provide a moderator, bringing the fee down to the $35 minimum for these teams. Teams only registering one team do not need to provide a moderator, although we reserve the right to place any team that has not yet registered on a waitlist that will be dependent on us having enough moderators. we hope that we do not have to do this, though.

If you're in the DC area and would like to help staff this tournament, please contact me at [email protected] with your name and a message saying that you want to help out. We can offer various packet sets that we have and discounts to future college tournaments (such as our June tournaments) for anyone willing to help out. You'll also get a free pizza lunch out of it.

Here is the updated field:
Pikesville (1)
Eleanor Roosevelt (2)
Reservoir (3)
Woodson High School (2)
Mount Vernon High School (1)
Calvert Hall College High School (2)
Gonzaga High School (2)
Paint Branch High School (1)
Stone Bridge (2)
Howard (1)
Hammond (1)
Maggie Walker (2)
Centennial (2)
Whitman (1)
J.E.B. Stuart (1)
DeMatha (2)
Hayfield (1)
Walter Johnson (1)
South Lakes (1)
GDS (1)

Total Teams: 30

Wait List:
South Lakes Second Team
Potential GDS Second Team

Remember, to register please contact me at [email protected]. Even if you cannot provide moderators for additional teams, at least tell me that you would like to bring them and I will get back to you as soon as I know how many moderators we're going to have if we can accommodate your additional teams.

Also, for any registered teams that didn't get the message I sent out earlier about logistics, here it is:

----

This is an update for the Maryland Spring Classic Tournament taking place this Sunday, April 29th at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Here are some updates on the tournament:

-In case you did not see the update at the hsquizbowl.org post, we will be having 15-point powers on tossups at the tournament.

-If you have not yet confirmed with me exactly how many teams your school will be brining, please do this soon so that we can work out the schedule.

-It looks like we'll end up having around 32 teams for this tournament, so we will be having either 7 or 8 preliminary rounds (depending on what the final number ends up being) and then a 16-team single elimination playoff.

-Registration will be taking place in the Physics Lecture Hall in the Physics Building from 8 - 9 AM on Sunday. You can easily reach the Physics Building by entering the campus at the Campus Drive entrance from Route 1 and turning right at the traffic circle with a large "M" in the middle of it. The physics building is about 100 feet up this road on your right. I believe that you can park in the Regent's Drive Parking Garage across the street from the Physics building, although they are doing construction on it so I'm not sure of the exact situation. If you are unable to park there, you can park up Campus drive past the Stamp Student Union in Lot 1, Lot Z, or Lot 7 (check the signs for exactly where it is legal to park). If you are unclear on directions, check out the interactive campus map: http://www.parking.umd.edu/themap/

-For spectators and others that may be coming late, the actual matches will be taking place in basement of the adjacent Mathematics building.

-Lunch options will be provided on the back of the schedule. Your best bets are the Stamp Student Union or the restaurants on Route 1.

-If you are running late, please call me on my cell phone at [withheld, please e-mail me if you need this] so we know that you're still coming. Please try to be on time so that we can get the tournament started in a timely fashion.

See you all on Sunday morning.
Thanks,
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Maryland Academic Quiz Team

[Mike Bentley]

A slight update on registration:

We will be capping the field at 36, which gives us room for about 5 more teams. We will be accepting single teams from schools up until this limit, placing any additional teams from a school on the wait list until registration ends at 12:01 AM on Saturday morning. At this point, teams from the wait list will be contacted to be added to the roster until we have a full field. Additional teams do not need to provide a moderator, unlike what is stated in the above post.

While we now have enough moderators, we would still prefer to have some more so we can get scorekeepers in some of our rooms. So if your'e in the DC area and can help out on Sunday, e-mail me at [email protected].

[vcuEvan]

Richard Montgomery isn't coming? Doesn't seem like too far of a drive for them.

[Mike Bentley]

Richard Montgomery isn't coming? Doesn't seem like too far of a drive for them.

Chris Ray was under the impression they were coming, but they haven't registered with me yet. So, as far as I know, they're not coming.

[aestheteboy]

Yay Whitman!!! (They beat Gov in the finals).
WJ (edit: comfortably) beat a Ted-less Gonzaga in the third place match.

I'll also add that the awards were pretty bad. I'd much rather take, for example, a bar of chocolate than a used Confessions of St. Augustine.

[Mike Bentley]

Thanks to all the teams for coming.

I'll be sending out a longer message to all of the teams (and a set of the questions) later tonight or tomorrow, but for now I'd like to congratulate Whitman on their victory over Maggie Walker.

I apologize for the myriad of problems in this tournament, most notably taking far too long to get stats done, the unreasonable difficulty of the first playoff packet, and a few topics coming up multiple times or having factual errors in them. We hope that stuff like this does not happen again in the futuer, and hopefully this does not deter you from coming to future Maryland tournaments.

I only ended up getting about 5 suverys, so I'm going to send them out again in electronic form for teams to fill out again (plus you probably have some new comments since handing them in).

Full stats will be posted next weekend at the earliest, because I need to essentially re-enter them because they had so many problems.

Feel free to post additional comments here or to e-mail me directly at [email protected].

Again, thanks everyone for coming and look out for a longer e-mail with the question set in a little while.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Daichi forgot to add a barely before that beat a ted-less gonzaga

[Mike Bentley]

I'll also add that the awards were pretty bad. I'd much rather take, for example, a bar of chocolate than a used Confessions of St. Augustine.

Perhaps the good books were taken by the 1st and 2nd place teams. I thought there was at least an okay selection.

Next time we may consider getting different prizes. Perhaps high school players are less interested in receiving literature prizes than college students.

[Captain Sinico]

...I'd much rather take, for example, a bar of chocolate than a used Confessions of St. Augustine.

And yet one of these will get you so many more points than the other...

MaS

[Auks Ran Ova]

"Chocolate Bar Ingredients" - coming to an NAC lightning round near you!

[jbarnes112358]

Congratulations to Whitman for their quality victory. Beating Gonzaga and Maggie Walker is not easy to do. We certainly could have used Mark in those finals, but it probably would not have mattered. Whitman was on fire and was not to be denied. I have been singing their praises on this board. They are an underrated team. They have really emerged since people voted in that poll. They are a top ten caliber team IMHO, and I predict they will cause plenty of people problems at nationals.

As for the tournament, the few problems here and there do not detract from the overall question quality. The questions were very well written in general. No one mentioned picking up questions. Can they be e-mailed to us?

[Lapego1]

As to the tournament, very well-run. The moderators were all experienced, and things seemed to proceed pretty smoothly. Aside from the little problem with the stats, I saw no real flaws. Questions were very solid, except a couple which, if I heard correctly, had some factual errors. None of them made a difference in any of our games though. That said, this may have been the best set we've heard all year.

Whitman is a very good team that has sort of gone under everyone's radar because they haven't been to too many pyramidal tournaments. We were particularly impressed when we played them at UVA's Cav Open, and I would put them in the company of some of the best teams in the region because of their speed.

[Mike Bentley]

Questions were just e-mailed to the people I had contact information for.

If you did not get a set and you attended the tournament, plaese contact me at [email protected]. Also contact me if you want to buy the question set ($15 for 12 rounds + 2 extra rounds).

By the way, I'm going to post last year's set to the Stanford Archives at some point in the near future.

[Byko]

Just a comment or two from someone who read yesterday:

1. Walt Whitman is for real--they really impressed me. I didn't get a chance to see the finals, and now I'm definitely disappointed that I didn't stick around to see. They're certainly peaking at the right time.

2. I read at this tournament last year, and I felt that this year's questions were better than last year's. Some of the complaints such as the overly difficult first playoff round and the number of repeats have already been addressed. But I felt that the question quality was better this year.

3. Having said #2, though, as a reader, I would really encourage more copy editing to be done. For readers who don't have a chance to look at questions in advance, it can be very difficult to do an effective reading job if there are misspellings and places where a word is missing or an extra word has been added such that the entire sentence structure is somewhat flawed. I know that this is probably the most painful and least fun part of editing, but it's definitely necessary. Again, however, while there were problems with it this year, it was definitely better this year than last year.

It's great that you're taking ownership of the ways to improve for future tournaments. Good job.

[Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe]

I guess I'll be the first from Whitman to post.

First of all, thanks to everyone for the kind comments.

I was pretty happy with the tournament. The question set was probably the best I've heard this year. NAQT's emphasis on trash and current events have never been something I enjoy, and their latest packets haven't been particularly good. This tournament was a pleasant respite.

That said, there were some badly written questions. The tossup on Le Chatelier's Principle had Paul Samuelson in the first clue. And it's more or less a stock clue at this point that Chinua Achebe wrote an essay about racism in Heart of Darkness. It didn't make a difference in the end, but having buzzer races in the semifinals and finals matches probably isn't a good idea.

I thought the repeats weren't a major problem. The only one that stood out to me was capacitance/capacitor, and they were sufficiently distinct so as to not cause problems.

We scrimmaged against Walter Johnson to try out the first playoff packet, and I didn't think it was too unreasonable. I think it had the only poetry tossup I didn't know early in the question, and I felt like anyone who knew something about twentieth century philosophy could have gotten the philosophy bonus. It also had that really bad Fathers and Sons tossup which mentioned nihilism and conflict between characters in the pre-FTP area.

Please, please keep the books as rewards. My only complaint with them might have been that most of our choices were books good high school teams were likely to have already read (Crime and Punishment, Candide, etc). That said, I love my Bedford Anthology of World Literature.

Also, any chance that the recorded matches are going to be uploaded to quizbowl cast? I for one am eager to hear how terribly annoying I sound when I have a cold.

[Mike Bentley]

I guess I'll be the first from Whitman to post.

First of all, thanks to everyone for the kind comments.

I was pretty happy with the tournament. The question set was probably the best I've heard this year. NAQT's emphasis on trash and current events have never been something I enjoy, and their latest packets haven't been particularly good. This tournament was a pleasant respite.

That said, there were some badly written questions. The tossup on Le Chatelier's Principle had Paul Samuelson in the first clue. And it's more or less a stock clue at this point that Chinua Achebe wrote an essay about racism in Heart of Darkness. It didn't make a difference in the end, but having buzzer races in the semifinals and finals matches probably isn't a good idea.

I thought the repeats weren't a major problem. The only one that stood out to me was capacitance/capacitor, and they were sufficiently distinct so as to not cause problems.

We scrimmaged against Walter Johnson to try out the first playoff packet, and I didn't think it was too unreasonable. I think it had the only poetry tossup I didn't know early in the question, and I felt like anyone who knew something about twentieth century philosophy could have gotten the philosophy bonus. It also had that really bad Fathers and Sons tossup which mentioned nihilism and conflict between characters in the pre-FTP area.

Please, please keep the books as rewards. My only complaint with them might have been that most of our choices were books good high school teams were likely to have already read (Crime and Punishment, Candide, etc). That said, I love my Bedford Anthology of World Literature.

Also, any chance that the recorded matches are going to be uploaded to quizbowl cast? I for one am eager to hear how terribly annoying I sound when I have a cold.

More about the book selection: I actually picked up some good anthologies of American Literature but was unable to bring them because they were really big and we were carrying a lot of stuff. They might resurface in the fall.

The matches will be up on the Quizbowl Cast when I get some free time. I still need to put up the Boston College Trash tournament and the Trash Theme Rounds, so don't expect them for at least a week or so.

Re: Achebe. Yeah, that was one we really should have changed, especially for the finals packet. Sorry about that.

Re: Le Chatlier's. That was gotten early when we play tested at practice, but I think we thought that it wasn't that well known, at least amongst high school players. It wasn't gotten early in the room I was reading in at the time, but I do agree it probably should have been later in the question.

Re: Copy Editing. This was a product of us not having the packets done until late on Saturday. For numerous reasons, we had to spend most of our time on writing questions and didn't get enough of a chance to edit them as much as we would have liked. As a result, really dumb things like not having one of the packets mixed and having some really obvious gramattical errors weren't fixed. Hopefully next year we will be able to get the raw packets written a lot earlier so we will have more time to address these things.

[Magister Ludi]

Overall this was a very good tournament with excellent questions. I felt the first playoff game wasn't terribly difficult and G.E. Moore is a more than reasonable answer to have for the third part of a bonus.

Whitman has really improved since we played them a few months ago. They are very quick and destroyed us in the second half, but I must say I was dissapointed with the fact that there were only three lit questions in the semi-finals (with the Lear questions being very transparent)

[magin]

Sorry about the Achebe clue; I read the essay, but didn't think it was all that well known in high school. I would have edited the Fathers and Sons tossup if I had had a little more time; sorry about that. Also, I apologize if the poetry tossups began with comparatively easier clues; I tried to write about well-known poems and start out with clues that would be useful to people who were familiar with them, although in retrospect the "Dover Beach" question could have (and probably should have) begun with a more difficult clue.

After getting used to the college canon, it's a little hard for me to approximate what highschoolers know; for instance, in retrospect, I think the bonuses on Thomas Pynchon and Wole Soyinka and the tossup on Lyrical Ballads were probably too hard for the majority of the field. That's likely why (at least in the categories I wrote for and edited) I tried to prevent the tossups from being too opaque; hopefully, that didn't prevent teams from enjoying the tournament. For future tournaments, it would be extremely helpful for teams to fill out the electronic survey and send it to Mike, as we are interested in running the highest-quality tournament we can, and we do take your feedback into account.

-Jonathan Magin

[jbarnes112358]

Will stats be posted?

[Mike Bentley]

Will stats be posted?

You can find the error prone stats here:

http://www.doc-ent.com/quizbowl/ErrorSt ... dings.html

I still have the scoresheets and will be re-entering the stats this weekend to fix all of the errors in them.

Individual stats are very messed up on that because several teams changed their names throughout the tournament.

[Stat Boy]

As another player from Whitman, I'd like to say that we were impressed with Woodson's performance in our game against them. I don't think we pulled ahead until around question 17. Also, although St. Augustine's Confessions may not be the most interesting prize, we got books in addition to a trophy, which is better than just getting a trophy. (I almost talked one of my teammates into taking Confessions but, no such luck for you.)

[STPickrell]

Individual stats are very messed up on that because several teams changed their names throughout the tournament.

I wouldn't even worry about it.

I'm more and more inclined to recommend that individual stats no longer be kept. If individual coaches and players want to do so for their reasons, fine -- but why should a tournament keep individual stats when players don't care enough to at least keep the same alias during the tournament?

[Neptune]

I'm yet another Whitman A player, and I would just like to say that I appreciate the kind words and praise that everyone has given us for our victory. We held nothing back at this tournament and wanted to show everyone that Whitman truly is a strong force. I'm looking forward to Nationals and wish everyone the best of luck. (Any of my complaints about the tournament seem to have been addressed by my teammates...)

[Byko]

Individual stats are very messed up on that because several teams changed their names throughout the tournament.

I wouldn't even worry about it.

I'm more and more inclined to recommend that individual stats no longer be kept. If individual coaches and players want to do so for their reasons, fine -- but why should a tournament keep individual stats when players don't care enough to at least keep the same alias during the tournament?

Shawn, I strongly agree with you. In the past, I've argued that keeping individual stats has helped to make quiz bowl more of an individual game and less of a team game and helped to contribute to bad attitudes among players. While I feel less strongly about that stance now, I definitely think that in many cases, it is simply too much complication in statkeeping for too little benefit. For tournaments that I run, I do not keep individual statistics unless: 1. It is a national championship tournament, or 2. It is mandated by another organization (e.g., NAQT requiring keeping individual statistics in state championships).

[First Chairman]

I'll give a contrary argument: I'm compiling all the final information for naming the all-state team for North Carolina (we're not going to Panasonic). If I didn't have individual stats, I wouldn't have much to go on for the selection of the teams. I don't have much now.

We don't keep "assists" in quiz bowl. I agree that's too bad.

I do think that for some areas of the country, the individual recognition is very important. Some people will use it as motivation... and that on its own right isn't a bad thing. But I do think that tournaments that literally claim they qualify a team for state or national championship qualification should be keeping proper individual stats.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Is there gonna be a neg prize given out? because one guy from our b team definately got the most

[Mike Bentley]

Is there gonna be a neg prize given out? because one guy from our b team definately got the most

Nah, we thought this would be mean at the high school level.

We would have given out individual prizes if those stats hadn't gotten messed up, though. But I think just giving them to the top 4 teams covered most of the leading scorers.

[Magister Ludi]

It doesn't make a difference, but our actual PPG for the tournament was 487 ppg. Either way, even if we were seeded above Whitman they would of beat us in the semis.

[Salt Lake Dream]

As the last player from Whitman A...well, I think everything I would have to say has already been said. Although, I would rather give up free cookies forever than take a used copy of St. Augustine's Confessions (even though my copy of Candide has yellow pages).

[Mike Bentley]

Ok, the podcasts are finally up for this tournament. Check out my signature for a link.