Mellon Bowl - 10/29

[ppadmanabhan]

Boardman competed in Mellon Bowl XIV yesterday at Carnegie Mellon on the IS-160 set. We went 2-2 in the morning rounds, with a 5 point loss to Shady Side and a blowout against Alagar Homeschool. Some mental mistakes cost us in our game against Shady Side, and that sent us to the middle bracket. We breezed through the afternoon rounds, easily going 6-0, for a final record of 8-2 and 9th place. Slightly disappointing finish, but we had fun at CMU's beautiful campus. Plus, we were 4th in PPB!

Alagar ended up going undefeated and winning with Winchester Thurston in second by virtue of top PPG in a 3-way tie. Rajan Alagar was the top scorer.

PA has some good teams this year. Alagar is obviously very good, although they did have some sibling squabbles during bonuses. WT and Allderdice are also strong and well-balanced teams and I believe State College sent their B team, so that's an impressive finish for them.

Stats: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/3913/stats/all_games/

[Get Lynned]

I always enjoyed the tournaments put on by the University of Pittsburgh, and I imagine Carnegie Mellon's team puts on a very fine event as well. Fall time in Pittsburgh!

Yeah, western PA is always hard to read competition wise as very few schools travel outside of the state or go to events in eastern PA, but Alagar Homeschool should be pretty good. What I've always noticed is some teams just come out of nowhere and do very well. Winchester Thurston, when they first started playing NAQT a few years ago, were doing very well (including a 7-3 HSNCT Saturday) and its good to see them with another strong team again. One of my favorite games I got to play in HS was the finals of a Battle of the Burgh edition between us and WT, featuring my friend Nat Brodsky. It was a high energy game!

The only thing I don't like about the tournaments in Pittsburgh are the timed rounds. I realize there are benefits to playing on timed rounds in terms of staying on a good pace schedule wise; however, when a good handful of games are getting less than 16 tossups read, then a better solution should be workable.

[ppadmanabhan]

Agree about the timed rounds. Doesn't seem fair that some teams only hear 12 questions of a packet while others hear 18, especially if certain packets are front-loaded with a subject. Also not a fan of stalling on bonuses. If Ohio tournaments can run on schedule with 20 questions per round, PA's should too.

[BobKilner]

I loved reading for Alagar a couple times at HSNCT. I was fascinated by the fact they were quadruplets (although the older sister played and the one brother did not). They were a very impressive bunch last year and I imagine they've gotten even better.

Timed rounds are always good practice for HSNCT and are fine IF AND ONLY IF, you have all competent readers that can get to at least 19-20 tossups read per round. The odds of having that luxury though aren't usually very good.