Beginner-level competition in DC/MD/VA area

[DBCRQB]

As the new coach of a new quizbowl team in the DC area, I am looking for the opportunity for our students to compete against other quizbowl teams from schools in the DC area. Our team, just experienced their first quizbowl tournament against some very good teams this weekend. While they enjoyed the experience, and had a lot of fun, they were beat handily in nearly every round. They want to continue these competitions and practice to get better, and I know that it would help them to continue to compete against other teams from other schools. However, I would ideally prefer to give them the opportunity to not be disheartened by continually being blown out of the water every time they compete. Therefore, I am looking especially for any friendly scrimmages/competitions against other teams in the DC area, perhaps against other younger or less-experienced teams who might be also looking for some friendly practice competitions or scrimmages. If this applies to you, please PM me or reply below. On behalf of the team, thank you in advance.

To pre-empt some future confusion, I have seen the tournaments page and am looking at a number of larger tournament competitions already. Thanks!

[Bolt52]

It is great to see new schools coming into various competitions in the region. When we played your school at the Maryland Regional Qualifier we found it very interesting (and exciting) that it seems you have so many interested members. Perhaps in later tournaments it would be beneficial for you to expand to an A, B, and possibly C teams in competition. The regional tournament that was your first was a very competitive one due to its low field size (4) and only allowing an A (best) teams from each school. I would suggest that you should sign up for tournaments that have higher field sizes so that you can compete against B, and C teams. Look for something that has around 24 teams so that there will be a greater variety of experience. Possibly, if your students qualify, it may also be beneficial for them to go tournaments offering a "Novice" division.

I would have to confirm with our coach however if Eleanor Roosevelt B would more than willing to train with your team and possibly play friendly games. I will PM you when I get a response about that.

One last note, ERHS is thinking about (nothing is confirmed yet) offering a Middle School and Novice High School Tournament in the late Spring. If this consolidates we will be putting it on the forums.

Good luck and I hope your students have fun with HS Quizbowl!

[btressler]

If you're willing to do a 2 hour drive up I-95, Wilmington Charter hosts a tournament each November which includes a novice division run on an NAQT A level set. Teams such as Richard Montgomery, GDS, and Walter Johnson have made the trip in past years.

[Important Bird Area]

I split the It's Academic discussion into a new thread.

The following are parts of posts that ended up in the new thread but are relevant here:

Hi:

I'm also from ER, and in terms of novice competition, it is rare as far as I know. RM had a novice set in the fall (we didn't attend, we hope to next year), and that's all I can think of right now. I would recommend going back through all the posts for the past year or two in the "Regular Season Announcements" section to more accurately take stock of the novice competition across the nation.

Generally, I think that any team that is at all serious (like, even to the point of "practicing for two hours a week and going to a tournament on average once every other weekend" serious) will be able to become reasonably competitive at normal tournaments very quickly. If DBCR has regular practices and goes to the tournaments in their area for the rest of this school year and then starts up again in August, then by October they will be able to win 4 or 5 games and feel comfortable with the material on an ordinary NAQT or HSAPQ set. Getting from the starting gate to that point is really simple both in terms of figuring out what to do and finding the time to do it. Getting from there to actually contending to win tournaments is the real challenge.

[Howard]

Sorry for making your job difficult by posting whilst you were splitting.