The Ohio Quizbowl Forum

NE Champion: Solon
NE Runner-Up: Lakewood
WC Champion: Northmont
WC Runner-Up: Sidney
SE Champion: Liberty
SE Runner-Up: St. Charles

waiting updates from the other regions:

In NW: Elyria Catholic is going to states, and will be joined by the winner of the Bowling Green/Toledo School of the Arts match that is ongoing.

Via text from Tom: Liberty beat St. Charles twice to win the SE Regional

Edited to reflect my mistake.

Per Mr. Flint, Copley won and Green took second at Cloverleaf.

Update:

NC: Solon, Lakewood
NE: Copley, Green
NW: Elyria Catholic, Bowling Green
SE: Liberty, St. Charles
SW: Walnut Hills, Mason
WC: Northmont, Sidney

Well looking at states then, if everyone is at full strength...

The draw obviously affects things, but I'm going to go ahead and make my prediction as:

1 - Solon
2 - Sidney
3 - Northmont
4 - Copley

That said, anyone could finish in any order and none of these teams are invincible, as seen by the results all year.

Congrats to everyone that made it to Columbus, and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in a couple weeks.

It looks like Elyria Catholic, Mason, Lakewood, and Olentangy Liberty are schools making their first trip to 'Cap city for OAC. Bowling Green made the tournament in 2012, and Green was the 2010 state champion.

Is a bracket of death possible? If so, what could it look like?

We beat Mason during one of our state championship runs in either 07 or 08, so they've been there before.

I agree with Bob that the top four in a vacuum are probably Solon/Sidney/Northmont/Copley in some order, with Solon a little ahead of the pack. As far as Tom's question about whether a "bracket of death" is possible, I think the field is deep enough to provide some fun matchups, especially with Sidney coming in as a 2-seed. For example, you could have:

Solon (NC-1), Copley (NE-1), and Walnut Hills (SW-1) all drawing into the same group with Sidney (WC-2), St. Charles (SE-2), and Bowling Green (NW-2), which would be interesting and also knock out one of my predicted "top four" before the playoff stage (I have no idea about how good Walnut Hills is, but I bet they could snake a win somewhere, and Sidney and St. Charles are probably the strongest two-seeds). The same "three-top-teams-for-two-spots" rule would be true of...

Solon (NC-1), Copley (NE-1), Liberty (SE-1) along with Sidney (WC-2), Mason (SW-2), and Bowling Green (NW-2). Not only does this eliminate one of Solon/Sidney/Copley before the playoff stage, but it also positions Liberty to play spoiler (see sidebar below). If that doesn't float your boat, you could have...

Solon (NC-1), Copley (NE-1), Northmont (WC-1) along with St. Charles (SE-2), Mason (SW-2), and Bowling Green (NW-2). This scenario, as well as the one directly above, might be more of just a rough draw for Northmont/Copley and not a true group of death, since you don't have the punch of both Sidney and St. C coming in from the bottom part of the division, but it certainly has teeth.

(Sidebar) As we make predictions, I wouldn't count out Olentangy Liberty's ability to have a say in the proceedings with a well-placed win or two...it might be a little odd to suggest that the SE champion would come in under the radar, but having read for OL (albeit only in NAQT format) I can attest that they're pretty well-specialized when they're at full strength. I don't know how deep their knowledge goes, which is necessary to consistently score points on the top teams on OAC state-level questions, but I could see them knocking off one of the "top four" over the course of the day and making the playoffs if they get a good draw.

Congratulations to all the teams that made it into this very strong state field, and best of luck in Columbus!

After talking to the previous coach it will be our second time to OAC states. In 2005 we were runner up in the West Central region.

I probably should have remembered that, that was my first trip to states as a coach and we fell victim to awful questions and went 2-and-out. Tipp, led by Zach Witeof, was the WC champ that year and drew Copley (who we had beaten for the NE regional title). Copley beat Tipp in R1 and then Tipp ran through the entire loser's bracket to finish 2nd to Copley. That year was unusual because Copley's captain Abbaad Haider came down with some really bad illness that caused him to miss months of school and competitions and his first competitions back were regionals and states, helping them to the state title. My 2006-2008 teams were dynamite when we won our titles, but my 2005 team was better than all three of those teams. It was devastating to them to have that happen, but it was the nature of OAC questions back then. I still have binders upon binders of questions from the mid-to-late 80s-onward that are hilariously bad.