• High School
• NAQT Missouri Qualifier

2016 NAQT Missouri Qualifier

March 5, 2016 at Columbia College

36 teams attended the 2016 NAQT Missouri Qualifier, making the ninth annual Qualifier the largest to date!

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

The top 2 teams in each pool advanced to the championship tier, remaining eligible to win the tournament. The third place teams advanced to Consolation 1, the fourth place teams to Consolation 2, and so on, with each consolation pool of six playing 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, Hickman A, Washington B, Washington A, and Rock Bridge A advanced to the superplayoffs, while the remaining championship tier teams played round 10 placement games. After round 10, Washington B and Rock Bridge A both had losses to Hickman A and Washington A, so their scheduled round 11 game was effectively for third place, which Washington B won 340-265.

Hickman A and Washington A were undefeated going into round 11, effectively starting a best of three final. Washington won the first game 340-280, then Hickman won the next game 395-285, setting up a third winner-take-all game. With only a 45 point lead going into the last tossup, Hickman picked up the tossup after Washington answered incorrectly, winning the final game 365-285 to claim the 2016 NAQT Missouri Qualifier title!

For the small school title, Hallsville A and Centralia A both advanced to the overall championship rounds, with Hallsville A finishing in sixth place overall and Centralia A in twelfth place. The separation of six places was just enough for Hallsville A to claim their fourth consecutive NAQT Missouri Qualifier small school title without a final!

The top 15% (6 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 27-29 in Dallas. Congratulations to Hickman, Washington A and B, Rock Bridge A, Savannah, and Hallsville A for qualifying at this tournament. St. Joseph Central and Helias have already qualified one team each at previous tournaments. (In fact, all eight of these teams are already registered to attend HSNCT!) Because this is the official NAQT State Qualifier for Missouri, a bid is awarded to the top team that had not previously qualified. Congratulations to Helias for qualifying a second team to HSNCT after Helias C overcame a 25 point deficit going into the last tossup of the ninth place game to win that game 245-240!

Of our 36 teams, we had a tournament record 12 small school-eligible teams, continuing Missouri's tradition of strong quizbowl participation by smaller schools. The top 30% of small school teams (4 teams) have also qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 29-May 1 in Chicago. Congratulations to Hallsville, Centralia, Pilot Grove, and Wellsville-Middletown for qualifying for SSNCT!

Since this tournament is platinum certified by PACE, the top 25% (9 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Chicago on June 4-5. Congratulations to Hickman A, Washington A and B, Rock Bridge, Savannah, Hallsville, St. Joseph Central, and Helias A and C for earning bids to NSC!

During the awards ceremony, we presented the fifth MOQBA Award for Outstanding Student Involvement to Washington juniors Matt Chalem and Joe Stitz for their many efforts to encourage participation in quizbowl by elementary and middle school students. We thank Matt and Joe for their work to promote quizbowl to younger students, and look forward to recognizing more outstanding students in the future.

Thanks to all of our wonderful staff, we were able to complete a total of 179 games at a reasonable time. The staffers who made this 36 team tournament possible include Mercedes and Brittany from Hallsville; Sherry and Franziska from Hickman; Joanna from Rock Bridge; Scott from St. Joseph Central; Susie Thierbach, Melanie Bush, Audrey, Evan, Elise, and Zoe from Washington; coaches Ginger Luetkemeyer, Ryan Kennedy, Scott Allen, Kay Barnes, Michelle Oliver, Greg Irwin, and David Dennis; Allyson Lotz and Michael Menkhus from Truman State University; Diana Harmata from Mizzou; Gordon Arsenoff; and fellow Missouri Quizbowl Alliance members Jason Loy, Sean Phillips, Kevin Stockman, and Shelley Swoyer. Special thanks go to Brandon Daake, Miranda Geer, Sawyer Magnus, Holly Pletka, and Grace Ziehm for making the long trip from Southeast Missouri State University to staff the tournament, as well as Shelby Melton from SEMO for also volunteering to help us out in the control rooms, which proved to be extremely valuable to the success of the tournament; Alex Smith and Kyle Hill for not only staffing the tournament, but also performing additional duties before and during the event to make this tournament possible; Jacob O'Rourke for providing invoices and other additional help before the tournament; and former Qualifier co-director Alex Dzurick for returning from Illinois to run the Brown Hall control room.

We must also give a HUGE thanks to Columbia College for once again providing us the opportunity to use the facilities on their beautiful campus for the tournament. We could not have run a tournament of this magnitude in multiple buildings without the help of the amazing representatives from Columbia College, whose advance preparation and assistance during the tournament were critical to the success of this tournament. Thanks to all of the admissions staff who helped set up the game rooms on Friday afternoon, Dr. David Starrett, Carla Aufdemberge, and Kathleen Price for welcoming everyone to campus, and Kristen Hartmann and Kim Craig for all of their hard work and continued support to make this tournament possible all while simultaneously coordinating the other large event on campus! Everyone at Columbia College has been incredibly welcoming and accommodating, and we hope all of the teams had a great experience and will be eager to return to Columbia College next year should we decide to keep hosting the tournament there.

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

Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne
2016 NAQT Missouri Qualifier co-directors

Read the original tournament announcement.