The 2006 Panasonic thread

[leapfrog314]

For those who were wondering, Illinois didn't buzz in wrong a single time in the entire match where we scored 487 points. They said they think that's the highest score they've seen in the nineteen years of the PAC, but nobody got back to us with any confirmation. (The two dead fish and banana, incidentally, managed to answer a few questions in edgewise.)

Congratulations to Maryland, Florida, and Missouri, the last of which took 28 of 30 points on the last worksheet to beat Pennsylvania to third place, which was only one point behind (or ahead? I forget) of them after the 15-point round in the finals. Illinois tried not to be sour despite being placed in both Rooms of Death of the tournament, each with two of the eventual six finalists. Bad draw, better luck next time, I guess.

[Julie]

Hi.. well I'm certainly very proud of our team and - wow- it's fun to have them be the subject of some discussion.. of course, congrats to all finalists and esp. TEAM Maryland -- the buzz on the dual empire was timed wicked wicked fast -- to team Florida who was super also - some math buzzes come to mind -- to Missouri - an excellent deep team who killed us on the team question - to team Virginia who went for the gusto - and who also handily won our semifinal room of "death" and to Tennessee and their frighteningly young squad. (and to a very fine TEAM Illinois who had great strength and depth in putting up that monster 400+ score)

Yes, State College High had the honor of being TEAM Pennsylvania on the basis of our KMO wins and other team and individual strengths until a quickbuzz 3 team, short format tournament took over as a state qualifier. And for some years, we struggle to master the format... Jacob once gave practically the exact latitude and longitude and other geographical features trying to answer where the dead sea scrolls were found only to have the points go to someone else who knew they were "in a cave"... perhaps i exaggerate.

We were in Florida beginning in 1991 where I was alone and nervous until I first met some of you master coaches - and a very nice woman from Michigan befriended me and Mr. Kravitz took my player's cause up in a chemistry question that he still remembers the formula for...

We stayed as TEAM PA through much of the 90's and in '97 Tennyson Liu - later to DUKE - became our first All- American, followed by Jacob Mikanowski ( Princeton) in '99 with the medal that we all agreed was shared with Cathy Vrentas ( Penn State) and this year, finishing officially 4th ties our highest place ever. ( they now give a trophy for 4th so hurray!) and kudos to Francois Greer for leading the team and receiving a medal as well -- our collective 3rd.

Anyhow, kids, if you are reading this, hats off again for using the few Panasonic practices we did have to your best advantage.. be brave and see you tomorrow for the long drive south... jg

[astrophysicist2b]

Pennsylvania's tournament is absolutely horrid (I'm a State College alum, and played in it three times).

Out of curiosity, you wouldn't happen to know who runs it (or really, who provides the questions), would you? With a state as good as Pennsylvania, teams really deserve something better on which to decide their state champion, and I know there are several people on this board who could put together a far better question set for them.

The State College coach (who just posted above-- Julie) has tried to find out many times who provides the questions, but to the best of my knowledge they have always refused to reveal who it is. I think she has done quite a bit to try and convince them to change the provider, but they seem quite content with their current one.

[NatusRoma]

Does anyone know who was on the team from Connecticut, and/or who the coach was?

[ksattelmeyer]

I think it's Cheshire HS still.