• High School
• NAQT Missouri Qualifier
• 2023

2023 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Recap

A tournament record forty-seven teams from thirty-six schools attended the 2023 NAQT Missouri Qualifier at Columbia College on March 4, 2023.

The teams were originally divided into 7 pools of 6 and a pool of 5 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 the Consolation 1 tier, the fourth place teams to Consolation 2, the fifth place teams to Consolation 3, and the sixth place teams to Consolation 4. Each consolation tier was divided into two parallel pools of four that each played a round robin in rounds 6-8, followed by a rebracket into upper and lower pools of four that played crossover games in round 9-10.

In the championship tier, four 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 four parallel pools consisting of the first and second place teams from two of the eight pools. Each of these pools played a crossover playoff, with games in rounds 6-7 and one preliminary game carrying over.

After round 7, the top two teams in each championship pool advanced to two parallel "upper" championship superplayoff pools, while the bottom two teams in each advanced to two parallel "lower" pools. Each team carried over one result and then played the other two teams in their new pool in rounds 8-9.

After round 9, Fair Grove, Ladue A, Parkway West, and Kickapoo advanced to the top 4 superplayoffs. Entering round 11, Fair Grove and Ladue A were both undefeated, effectively beginning a best-of-three final. Fair Grove won the first game 455-180, then Ladue A won the second game 300-235 to set up a third winner-take-all game. Fair Grove won that game 360-215 to become the second school to win both the overall and small school NAQT Missouri Qualifier titles! The other round 11 game was effectively the third place game, which Parkway West won 370-165 over Kickapoo.

As the only eligible team to advance to the Consolation 1 tier, Eugene was declared the Very Small School champion for the second consecutive year.

The top 15% (8 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 26-28 in Atlanta. Congratulations to Fair Grove, Ladue A, Parkway West, Kickapoo, College Heights Christian A, Sullivan A, Washington A, and Smithville for qualifying at this tournament.

Of our 47 teams, we had tournament record 19 small school eligible teams and 11 very small school eligible teams, continuing Missouri's tradition of strong quizbowl participation by smaller schools. The top 30% of small school teams (6 teams) have qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 28-30 in Chicago. Congratulations to Fair Grove, Oak Grove, Orchard Farm A, Eugene, Clever, and Westran for qualifying for the Traditional Public division of SSNCT! We also had seven teams eligible to participate in the Open division of SSNCT; congratulations to College Heights Christian A, Columbia Independent A, and St. Pius X 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.)

This tournament has been platinum certified by PACE, so the top 25% (12 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Chicago on June 10-11. Congratulations to Fair Grove, Ladue A, Parkway West, Kickapoo, College Heights Christian A, Sullivan A, Washington A, Smithville, St. Joseph Central, Washington B, Springfield Central, and North Kansas City for qualifying at this tournament.

This massive forty-seven team tournament could not have happened without the generosity and dedication of our incredible staff, including Addison from Fair Grove; Aydan and Reilly from Orchard Farm; Emily and Kennedy from Sullivan; Sam Bailey, Ashley Davis, Logan Durk, Matt Hudson, Joel Miles, Jordan Pannett, Alex Roettgen, Becca Snavely, and Rachael Walker; coaches Seth Brummond, Jacqueline Cleveland, Gabe Forrest, Jordan Henson, Mike Kopec, Kris Liesmann, Jason Loy, Josh Malecki, Jean Miller, Ben Nims, Marteen Nolan, Sarah Roth, Christopher Tompkins, Patrick Troy, and Holly Wooldridge; and fellow MOQBA members Audrey Brandon, Alex Dzurick, Ganon Evans, Paul Nelson, Sean Phillips, Jason Pounds, Kevin Stockman, and Shelley Swoyer. We'd also like to thank coaches Shelly Kiesling and Michelle Wahlquist for offering to staff.

Special thanks go to Kyle Hill for his continued support developing HILLSheets; coach David Dennis and scorekeepers Bryan, Dani, Deven, Peter, Phin, and Rylie from Washington for being the catalyst to confirm our final expansion to 48 teams; coaches Pat O'Keefe and Scott Walker for leading teams to Brown Hall and Brouder Science Center after the team meetings; and Connor Lee for additional assistance the morning of the tournament. Our biggest thanks go to Michael Menkhus and Jacob O'Rourke for their critical assistance with several important tasks on Saturday morning to keep us on track starting the tournament, and to Jacob for entering the statistics into YellowFruit, handling payments, and obtaining the trophies, medals, and book prizes.

In addition, we continue to be amazed by the incredible support we always receive from Columbia College. The assistance of Amy Grus, Kristen Neeley, Teri Dishman, 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. We look forward to collaborating with Columbia College on future tournaments and anticipate returning to campus again next season on our usual dates: the second Saturday in December (the 9th) for the eighth MOQBA Fall Championship, and the first Saturday in March (the 2nd) for the sixteenth NAQT Missouri Qualifier.

Thank you once again for attending the 2023 Qualifier! We have been dreaming of being able to run a 48 team Qualifier for several years and are thankful to all of the staff and teams for finally making that a reality. We wish you the best of luck as you compete the rest of this season.

Jeffrey Hill and Matt Chadbourne
2023 NAQT Missouri Qualifier co-directors