• High School
• NAQT Missouri Qualifier
• 2019

2019 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Recap

36 teams attended the 2019 NAQT Missouri Qualifier at Columbia College on March 2, 2019.

The teams were originally divided into 6 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, the fifth place teams to Consolation 3, and the sixth place teams 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, Ladue A, Hallsville A, St. Joseph Central A, and Louisiana advanced to the superplayoffs, while the remaining championship tier teams played round 10 placement games. Ladue A and Central were both undefeated going into their scheduled round 11 game, effectively setting up a best of three final. Ladue won the first two games 450-170 and 530-120 to earn their fourth NAQT Missouri Qualifier title!

The round 11 superplayoff game between Hallsville A and Louisiana effectively decided overall third place as well as the small school title. Hallsville narrowly won 175-165 to secure their seventh consecutive NAQT Missouri Qualifier small school title! Louisiana finished as the top Very Small School for the second straight year.

The top 15% (6 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 24-26 in Atlanta. Congratulations to Ladue A, Central A, Hallsville A, Louisiana, Ladue B, and North Kansas City for qualifying at this tournament.

Of our 36 teams, we had a tournament record 14 small school-eligible teams, continuing Missouri's tradition of strong quizbowl participation by smaller schools. The top 30% of small school teams (5 teams) have qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on May 3-5 in Chicago. Congratulations to Hallsville A, Louisiana, Eldon, Clever A, and Pleasant Hill A for qualifying for the Traditional Public division of SSNCT! We also had six teams eligible to participate in the Open division of SSNCT; congratulations to Calvary Lutheran A and B for earning bids to SSNCT by finishing in the top 30% of eligible teams!

(All projected bids to NAQT national championships are pending official confirmation from NAQT.)

Since this tournament is platinum certified by PACE, the top 25% (9 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Washington D.C. on June 8-9. Congratulations to Ladue A, Central A, Hallsville A, Louisiana, Ladue B, North Kansas City, CBC, Washington, and Hickman A for earning bids to NSC!

During the awards ceremony, we presented the MOQBA Values Award to Sophie Lockwood of Hallsville High School and Em Powers of Louisiana High School for exemplifying the core values of sportsmanship, fairness, and integrity by being supportive friends while frequently competing against each other in some of quizbowl's most pressure-intensive situations. We commend Sophie and Em for their exceptional citizenship and look forward to recognizing more outstanding students in the future.

Thanks to all of our talented staff who made this day of 183 quizbowl matches possible, getting everyone to lunch on time, having most teams done before 3:45, and completing the entire 12 round tournament by 4:45! The staff who did a fantastic job running this large tournament so efficiently include Emily Day, Alex Harmata, Max Ryle, Caden Stone, and April Wickham; coaches Peter Bonello, Mary Coogan, Drew Darr, Jon Deering, David Dennis, Michelle Humphrey, Malia Jolly, Jonah Krueger, Ginger Luetkemeyer, Josh Malecki, Andrew Reynolds, and Scott Walker; and fellow MOQBA members Jason Loy and Shelley Swoyer. Special thanks to North Kansas City coach Pat O'Keefe for volunteering to moderate after several of our staff couldn't attend due to illness or other emergencies; Hallsville coach Scott Allen and his crew of nine student scorekeepers; Jacob O'Rourke and Sean Phillips for presenting the MOQBA Values Award; Kyle Hill and Alex Smith for running the Brown and St. Clair control rooms; and to Stephanie Hull, Alex, Jacob, and Kyle for additional assistance with various tasks before, during, and after the tournament.

In addition, we are always extremely grateful for the outstanding support we consistently receive from Columbia College to help our events run smoothly. The tireless efforts and event planning expertise of Kerri Coley and the rest of the Columbia College team continue to make each tournament we host on their campus a great pleasure to run.

Thank you once again for attending the 2019 Qualifier, and we hope to see you all again next year!

Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne
2019 NAQT Missouri Qualifier co-directors