the tournament

You know, when I thought about the Academic Team GMC Tournament, I pictured groups of trivia nerds huddled in classrooms for four hours until one group was finally declared the winner. Definitely not the most exciting of ways to spend an afternoon.

Boy, was I wrong.

It started with barely enough students showing up for the bus. We told them to meet at 11:15, expecting to leave at 11:30. But 11:30 rolled around and we had the bare minimum - four. And our best player, Ray, was a no show. So we sent out reconnaissance to find the Science Olympiad competing in the building and they returned with Ray in tow. So at least we had a team, with one substitute even.

When we arrived at Hamilton, we figured out the tournament seeding. Based on the regular season total points, we finished in third place behind Lakota West, who we beat, and ahead of Lakota East, who destroyed us. But the good news was we ended up in the pool opposite from the 18-0 Sycamore team. Our pool included West, Princeton, Fairfield and Colerain. I liked our chances.

I spent the afternoon keeping time for the other pool so I didn't get to watch the matches. But I checked in during the breaks. Going into the final round, we needed a win by Fairfield to put us in a three-way tie with Fairfield and Colerain. We beat West (who dropped every match - so much for 2nd seed) and Fairfield won, so now we had to decide who would battle Sycamore in the Championship Round. We beat Fairfield, who beat Colerain, who beat us. So we went to the second tie break, which was point differential. Fairfield was at -5, Mason was at +3 and Colerain at +2. So going by the book we should have been in the the Championship Round and on our way to a second straight state tournament. But there was one tiny problem: seems during the Mason/Colerain match, Colerain had challenged one of the answers. They claimed the Catholic Reformation should have been accepted along with the answer in the book, Counter Reformation. The moderator didn't give them the points, so instead of winning by 5, they won by 2, meaning that question changed the point differential.

Still with me?

So we called a coaches meeting to figure out what to do. Technically, we should have won. When this had happened in the past, the book answer stood, which makes sense because otherwise you could end up having to google every question. But wanting to be fair (well, fair to Colerain anyway), we decided, since Sycamore was already going to state, to do a playoff, Colerain vs Mason, the winner going to state and taking on Sycamore in the final round.

The round was tense, Colerain feeling they'd been cheated by a bad question, Mason believing we had won according to the rules. But at least this way there would be no lingering questions. The set used was a nine, the hardest of the questions. At the end of the category round it was all tied, 24-24. I realized time was slipping away, so I stepped outside to let the bus driver know the situation and came back after the alphabet round was over and the lightning round had started. I looked at the score - Mason was behind by three points. The questions went back and forth. We'd get a question, they'd get a couple questions, we'd come back. When the dust cleared and all was finished, we tied the lightning round but found ourselves three points down. Three points away from state. But we had lost and so we loaded our bus, buoyed by our showing, but disappointed to have come so close to continuing our season.

The irony of it all is that in the category round, we technically got a question right, which would have given us three points, which would have made us tied at the end of the match. Unfortunately, by the time we figured out we should challenge, it was too late. But like Mark pointed out, we lost twice to the same team and if we were meant to go on, we would have beat them. Still disappointing and while I tried to put on a good face, it was hard. I felt the worst for our seniors, who were so instrumental in making this team what it was this year.

There's still a slim possibility we could make state by attending another tournament, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. I will definitely be looking into it on Monday though, because after the excitement of today, another day spent at a tournament sounds like the best way to spend an afternoon.
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