2nd Annual L.S.C. "Quest for the Nest" Tournament (11/12/11)

[biggiebird89]

The Lyndon State College chapter of the Sigma Zeta National Honor Society would like to invite you and your school to the
2nd Annual L.S.C. “Quest for the Nest” Academic Quiz Tournament!

DATE: Saturday, November 12, 2011

VENUE: Lyndon State College - 1001 College Rd., Lyndonville, VT, 05851. Parking is located in front of the Academic and Student Activities Center, located at the north end of campus, adjacent to the baseball field. See (http://www.lyndonstate.edu/prospective- ... ng-lyndon/) for a map and directions to our campus.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: (All times approximate depending on no. of teams)
8:00 – 9:00A.M: Registration Period (All teams must be accounted for by 9:00 A.M.)
9:00 A.M. – 9:15 A.M: Rules Meeting/Moderator Meeting
9:20 A.M: Preliminary Round Robin Tournament Begins
1:30 P.M: Lunch Break
2:00 P.M: Playoff/Consolation Rounds Begin

FORMAT:
-> Preliminary round-robin matches in the morning (random divisions based on no. of teams - ALL teams should expect at least 5-7 games.)
-> 30-minute lunch break
-> Re-bracketing into Playoff/Consolation divisions (PP20TH tiebreakers) with likely cross-bracket playoffs (carrying over preliminary round records.)
-> Advantaged Championships (depending on outcome of playoff RR matches.)

QUESTIONS: 2011 Fall Novice Question set, containing 20 tossups and 3-part bonuses. See (http://www.quizbowlpackets.com/archive/2010FNT/) for the 2010 set.

ELIGIBILITY: All high schools/teams in Vermont and New Hampshire are eligible; however the first (up to) 20 individual teams with all required information will be accepted.

PRICING STRUCTURE:
-> $40 per team, $30 for each additional team.
-> (-$5) for a fully-functional buzzer system (Must have four working buzzers per side, up to 2 max.)
-> (-$5) for a moderator or staff member.
-> (-$5) for every 100 miles traveled ONE WAY (calculated via Google Maps from HS address to LSC.)
-> $15 "Meal Deal": Teams may purchase a large cheese/pepperoni pizza and sodas for all team members (coaches included.)

REGISTRATION:
***We are allowing up to two teams per school, but may allow more depending on availability. ***
1.) Teams are encouraged to register their first team by the primary deadline of Saturday, October 15 (Friday into Saturday.) At this time, it is encouraged to make note of any wishes to add multiple teams.
2.) All interested 2nd teams/new individual schools/teams after this deadline will be placed on a wait-list, and will be admitted after this deadline based on order of registration through the 2nd deadline of Saturday, October 22.
3.) The FINAL DEADLINE for participation is Saturday, November 5.

If you are planning to attend, please e-mail [email protected] or [email protected] with your inquiry and we will send you a registration sheet to be filled out and sent back to the same address. If you have any questions, PLEASE do not hesitate to e-mail. We will do our best to work with your teams’ needs to best ensure a great experience for all to be had! We hope to see you at our tournament on Saturday, November 12, 2011!

[biggiebird89]

Confirmed Entrants
1.) Lisbon Regional (NH - 3 teams)
2.) Fair Haven (VT - 3 teams)
3.) Phillips Exeter Academy (NH - 2 teams)
4.) Hanover HS (NH - 1 team)
5.) Montpelier HS (VT - 1 team)

Total: 10 HS teams

[quickster94]

Have there been any changes with regards to the field since the last posting?

[biggiebird89]

At the moment, Fair Haven has confirmed 1 team into the tournament. My apologies for not updating. The majority of the teams listed are planning on bringing multiple teams, but we're just having them wait at the moment for the deadlines so we can allow other schools the chance to register as well. This coming Friday, 10/14 is the 1st deadline - on Saturday, those who want to enter 2nd teams can do so, and then after next Friday (10/21,) we will allow any school to register as many teams as they wish, until the last deadline of 11/5.

Add: I forgot to mention - last year, we had a lot of schools register towards the last deadline. I'm not exactly surprised this is the case again this year, but I am hopeful we will see more registrations this year. This was seen as a very successful tournament for our area of Vermont/NH, so we are hopeful to get the word out and see more schools/teams participating again this year.

[biggiebird89]

We are happy to announce that our tournament has been GOLD certified by PACE. This means that the top 20% of our field will qualify for the NSC and will be able to register on January 1 with a $50 discount should they wish to attend!

[quickster94]

Thanks very much for the update. South Burlington may be there again this year, not sure at this point.

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.

[biggiebird89]

Sounds good to me. I have updated the field again earlier today - Hanover is "splitting" teams between us and the Harvard tournament, so they will have one team there again, and Lyndon Institute has also inquired for registration as well. Aside from that, the 8 from Fair Haven, Lisbon, and PEA are confirmed, and we invite anyone still having not registered to inquire, or to spread the word to make this tournament huge and great!

[biggiebird89]

Bumping this just because we are within a 2 week period to this tournament date. We have 9 confirmed teams and one interested (awaiting their registration at the moment.) Any other interested teams should get a hold of me as soon as possible to reserve a spot!

[biggiebird89]

Full stats will be updated and loaded onto here by Monday at the latest.
Our tournament started late due to 2 teams from one school getting lost and arriving late, and moderator difficulties in one room set us back around an hour behind schedule.

Teams agreed at the lunch break (after 4 games) to reduce the 9 game round robin to 8 games (2 of 5 schools needed early departure for state football championships, etc.)

Phillips Exeter A finished 8-0, completely dominating the field with many 200-300+ victories
Phillips Exeter B finished 7-1 (teams chose to remain 1-2 as A and B instead of completing an advantaged championship series)
A 2-team tie between 6-2 Fair Haven "A" and Hanover went to Fair Haven "A" due to previous H2H matchups (students opposed playing game off.)

A big thank you to all teams that participated in this year's tournament - and thank you to the editors/writers of the Fall Novice question set - our teams thoroughly enjoyed the set and found it to be very respectable for their skill levels (many teams had first year players, and found it to be perfect for their level of play.)

[biggiebird89]

Updating statistics now.....after 4 of 8 matches (overall, PPG, PPB):

1.) PEA A (4-0, 538.8, 27.63)
2.) Hanover (3-1, 382.5, 19.81)
3.) Fair Haven A (3-1, 340.0, 21.86)
4.) PEA B (3-1, 331.2, 20.91)
5.) Fair Haven B (2-2, 176.2, 11.47)
6.) Montpelier (2-2, 151.2, 14.80)
7.) Lisbon A (2-2, 103.8, 11.00)
8.) Fair Haven C (1-3, 82.5, 10.62)
9.) Lisbon B (0-4, 45.0, 4.29)
10.) Lisbon C (0-4, 27.5, 4.44)

[biggiebird89]

Full tournament statistics can be found here:

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... all_games/

NOTE:
1.) A game in round 8 between Fair Haven "C" and Lisbon "A" is marked as a forfeit for Lisbon "A" - the score for this match is 135-115, however no score sheet could be found to report player statistics on this - therefore players for these teams have statistics out of 7 games, not the full 8 played.
2.) Standings ties are broken by PPG, however between 3rd/4th place teams, Fair Haven A was awarded 3rd place over Hanover by Hanover conceding the place rather than playing the tiebreaking game after the preliminary round robin tournament.

Please direct all questions to me at any time. I am awaiting a few name clarifications to update for teams, otherwise all data has been updated and checked twice for integrity.

[Excelsior (smack)]

This tournament had no eligibility restrictions, right?

[biggiebird89]

Correct - I have not been aware of how to go about finding information about who can/can't be eligible for this question set, and in this area of Vermont/New Hampshire, there are MANY teams who do not often play good quiz bowl, OR quiz-bowl in general outside of their state's leagues, etc. The intentions of the tournament is to get those teams who don't play much TO play. If it helps other schools who are consistently near the top of their state leagues to play to give other teams harder competition, I'm all for that. As a wise man once said, "The only way to become better is to compete against someone better than you."

For example, before reading about Phillip Exeter on the HFT thread, I had legit NO idea how good of a team/squad they have. After looking at this weekend's events, now I completely understand the high praise given to their teams. Obviously they would have great success at a novice-based tournament, but I was not aware of this. The purpose of this being to bring all teams together to help their confidence and teamwork through competition on a good set of questions, etc. I am seriously hoping this does not cause any waves for us having not had any eligibility restrictions. I noticed some tournaments have used them with novice sets, but with the fact we had 10 teams participate (11 last year,) my thought was we'd MAYBE reach 5 or 6 if we had restrictions, and by that, we'd be lucky to attract that.

[Excelsior (smack)]

I am seriously hoping this does not cause any waves for us having not had any eligibility restrictions.

Oh, I'm sure it won't - New England needs all the quizbowl it can get.

[biggiebird89]

Hence the reason I decided last year, as VP of the club who runs this tournament, to hold it. In HS, I played quiz-bowl for 6 years. At the time, I thought it was a great experience (little did I know that the style we used then, and that is still used now, would be/is shunned by the large majority,) and still do look at it as some great times. However in this area of Vermont where the college is, there are very few consistently active teams compared to the rest of the state. The idea is to offer an event to get those teams participating on an easy set of questions to help boost their confidence and get them to participate more.

One idea that we (by "we" I mean the club and myself, since as an alumni, I'm an adviser to their tournaments) are pondering is running a "trash" tournament after NH and VT state competitions are done with as a "wind-down" kind of tournament to the year, where coaches/players could play, come up with wacky names, etc, and just make it a very easy-going time. It's only in the "idea" stage, so who knows where it could lead. We're also pondering the idea of opening up our novice tournament to Maine as well next year, to see if we can attract any schools in that area. If we could attract PEA the 2-3 hour trip up I-93, surely there could be some Maine teams interested.

[Important Bird Area]

We're also pondering the idea of opening up our novice tournament to Maine as well next year

This is an excellent idea.

[deserto]

One idea that we (by "we" I mean the club and myself, since as an alumni, I'm an adviser to their tournaments) are pondering is running a "trash" tournament after NH and VT state competitions are done with as a "wind-down" kind of tournament to the year, where coaches/players could play, come up with wacky names, etc, and just make it a very easy-going time. It's only in the "idea" stage, so who knows where it could lead.

I imagine some Hanover students, myself included, would be interested in attending this.

Also, thanks a lot for hosting the "Quest for the Nest." As you know, there is a dearth of good quizbowl tournaments in northern N.E., and I think our team truly enjoyed playing on this question set against some quality competition. We look forward to next year's tournament!

[biggiebird89]

Gabe - Thank YOU and the great folks at Hanover for attending again this year. We aimed to make it a great event and, minus a few setbacks, we think overall it went as well as we could've expected it to. The club is definitely looking forward to next year's version, and I'm hoping it does go on as well.

As it pertains to the "Maine" invitation, the only thing we'd have to look into is the idea of talking to local motels/hotels in the town about lodging rates, etc, because the club that runs this event DOES NOT make much fundraising. By the time this tournament rolls around, if $100-$150 is made in fundraising, it'd be a great surprise to just about everyone. Plus I would need to get a hold of contacts in Maine concerning getting word out to high schools across the state with teams. Mind you, this would also be with me 2 years out of college, and just helping because no one else is really into the quiz-bowl scene aside from me, and the fact I'm not constantly there like I was as an undergrad would really be me going majorly above and beyond the call.