• High School
• MOQBA Fall Championship
• 2024

2024 MOQBA Fall Championship Recap

34 teams from 28 schools attended the ninth MOQBA Fall Championship at Columbia College on November 23, 2024.

The teams were originally divided into 6 pools of either 5 or 6 for preliminary rounds 1-5.

The top two teams in each pool advanced to the championship tier, remaining eligible to win the tournament. The third place teams advanced to Consolation 1 and the fourth place teams advanced to Consolation 2. The top five fifth place teams by points per game advanced to Consolation 3, while the remaining teams advanced to Consolation 4. Each consolation pool played a round robin in rounds 6-10.

In the championship tier, two roughly equal pools were seeded based on the points per bonus of the top team from each preliminary pool, with the corresponding second place teams advancing to the same pool. This resulted in two parallel pools consisting of the first and second place teams from three of the six pools. Each of these pools played a crossover playoff, with games in rounds 6-9 and one preliminary game carrying over.

After round 9, Mexico A, New Heights Christian, Parkway West, and Washington A advanced to the superplayoffs, while the remaining championship tier teams played round 10 placement games. Mexico was undefeated after round 11 and New Heights Christian had only one loss to Mexico, leading to an advantaged final. Mexico won the first game 390-275 to win the 2024 MOQBA Fall Championship undefeated for the second straight year. Parkway West took third over Washington A, effectively decided by the 400-200 game carried over from round 8. Bayless was the small school champion, finishing seventh overall.

On the strength of their performances, the top seven teams (Mexico A, New Heights Christian, Parkway West, Washington A, Lindbergh A, Lee's Summit West, and Bayless) have qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship, which is scheduled for June 7-8 at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in the Chicago area. Information on this national championship event can be found at pace-nsc.org.

This tournament would not have been possible without our team of exceptional moderators, scorekeepers, and statisticians. We are so thankful for all of our amazing staff volunteers who donated their time and energy on Saturday: Andy from Lee's Summit West; Eric Cartwright, Cheryl Edquist, Gabe Forrest, Brendan Fuller, Matt Hudson, Connor Lee, Andrew Ludwig, and Kylan Powell; coaches Seth Brummond, Dan Carstens, Bob Efken, Leo Hirner, Greg Irwin, Shelly Kiesling, Ginger Luetkemeyer, Levi Maxwell, Jean Miller, Sandy Olive, Max Ryle, Patrick Troy, and Tim Wellman; and fellow MOQBA members Fred Garvey, Jason Loy, Sean Phillips, Donal Ryan, Kevin Stockman, and Scott Walker. Special thanks to Kyle Hill for his continued dedication to enhancing the HILLSheets scorekeeping system; Stephanie Hull and Kyle for delivering the staff lunch to campus; Matt Chadbourne, David Dennis, and Dale Schenewerk for leading teams to competition buildings from Dulany Hall after the team meetings; Felix Wang for setting up classroom computers and leading teams to St. Clair Hall after lunch; Audrey Kierstead for handling team check-in, payments, and leading teams to St. Clair and Dorsey Halls after the opening meeting; and Jacob O'Rourke for handling buzzer check-in, entering the stats into YellowFruit, and ordering the awards.

In addition, we continue to be amazed by the incredible support we always receive from Columbia College. The assistance of Kim Craig, the Technology Services team, Campus Safety, and the rest of the Columbia College team is critical to ensuring these tournaments run as smoothly as they do. Thank you to Jen Crump for welcoming everyone to campus at the opening meeting. This is the tenth year of our partnership with Columbia College and we can't wait to return again for the seventeenth NAQT Missouri Qualifier on March 1. We anticipate opening registration on Wednesday, December 4 at 6:00 AM.

Best of luck to each of your teams as they compete the rest of the season!

Jeffrey Hill and Michael Menkhus
Co-Directors, 2024 MOQBA Fall Championship