• High School
• NAQT Missouri Qualifier

2015 NAQT Missouri Qualifier

March 7, 2015 at the University of Missouri-Columbia

26 teams attended the 2015 NAQT Missouri Qualifier on a beautiful Saturday, March 7.

The teams were originally divided into a pool of 6 and four pools of 5 for the preliminary rounds.

We then took the top 2 teams in each pool, as well as the top third place teams (by fewest losses, then greatest points per bonus) to the championship tier. These 12 teams were divided into 2 parallel pools of 8, which played a round robin for rounds 6-10. The top 2 in each played crossover games in the round 11-12 superplayoffs.

The remaining 14 teams were ranked #13-26 by position in preliminary pool, then fewest losses, then points per bonus.

• Teams #13-20 (the remaining third and fourth place teams in each pool) advanced to the "Consolation 1" tier, and were divided into 2 parallel pools of 4, which played a round robin for rounds 6-8. The top 2 in each advanced to an upper pool, playing crossover games in rounds 9-10 to determine 13th-16th place, while the remaining teams in each played crossover games to determine 17th-20th place.
• Teams #21-26 (the fifth and sixth place teams in each pool) advanced to the "Consolation 2" pool, which played a full round robin in rounds 6-10.

After round 11, Hickman A and Rock Bridge B both had losses to Hallsville A and Savannah, so their scheduled round 12 game was effectively for third place, which Hickman won 410-145. Hallsville A and Savannah were undefeated, effectively starting a best of three final. Hallsville won the first two games 465-225 and 355-200 to win the overall NAQT Missouri Qualifier title for the second consecutive year, as well as the small school championship for the third consecutive year!

The top 15% (4 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 29-31 in Chicago. Congratulations to Hallsville, Savannah, Hickman, and Rock Bridge for qualifying one team each at this tournament. Fifth place teams Helias A and Webster Groves have already qualified at previous tournaments. Because this is the official NAQT State Qualifier for Missouri, a bid is awarded to the top team that had not previously qualified, so both teams tied for 7th (Brookfield and a second team from Rock Bridge) have also qualified for HSNCT!

Of our 26 teams, we once again had 11 small school-eligible teams, continuing Missouri's tradition of strong quizbowl participation by smaller schools. The top 15% of small school teams (2 teams) have also qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 24-26 in Atlanta. Congratulations to Brookfield and defending small school national champions Hallsville for qualifying for SSNCT!

Since this tournament is platinum certified by PACE, the top 25% (7 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in the Washington D.C. area on June 6-7. Congratulations to Hallsville A, Savannah, Hickman A, Rock Bridge B, Helias A, Webster Groves, and Rock Bridge A for earning bids to NSC! (PACE's instructions were to break the tie for 7th place by points per game.)

During the awards ceremony, we presented the fourth MOQBA Award for Outstanding Student Involvement to Hallsville senior Jared Lockwood for his many efforts to encourage participation in quizbowl by elementary and middle school students. We thank Jared for his work to promote quizbowl to younger students, and look forward to recognizing more outstanding students in the future.

Thanks to the cooperation of everyone in attendance and the talents of the entire tournament staff, we were able to complete the round 13 finals match by 4:15. The staffers who made this possible were Sophie and Colton from Hallsville; Sherry and Franziska from Hickman; coaches April Murdock and Allison Graves from Washington, Greg Irwin from Rock Bridge, Ryan Kennedy from Centralia, and Scott Allen from Hallsville; Michael Menkhus, Andrew Ludwig, Evan McWilliams, Richard Yu, and Gordon Arsenoff; and fellow MOQBA members Kevin Stockman, Jacob Billingsley, Samantha Haynes, Jacob O'Rourke, Matt Chadbourne, and Jason Loy. Special thanks go to Itamar Naveh-Benjamin, Sean Phillips, Alex Smith, Stephanie Hull, and Kyle Hill for not only staffing the tournament, but also performing additional duties before the event to make this tournament possible.

The lack of access to an auditorium was not ideal, but it seemed like holding the awards in the second floor hallway worked out fine given the circumstances. Thanks to Kyle Hill and Washington coach David Dennis for providing the audio equipment. We will be exploring options to avoid this situation in the future.

Thank you once again for attending. We hope to see everyone again next year! If you have any feedback about how this tournament ran, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Jeffrey Hill and Alex Dzurick
2015 NAQT Missouri Qualifier co-directors

Read the original tournament announcement.