what's the buzz?

Disclaimer: This post contains a lot of information that you may find... well, boring. This blog also serves as a family scrapbook of sorts, so much of this info is for me. Bear with me :).

I mentioned briefly that Claire was on her school's Quiz Bowl team. She tried out (took a test) and made the team back in January. They had a few practice meets after school, but this past weekend was the end-all-be-all Quiz Bowl tournament.

If you're scratching your head and making this face:

,  I'll share a few details:

Our school has 2 teams of 6 students, made up of 3 fourth graders and 3 fifth graders. Team A & Team B (Claire was on Team A). In a meet or tournament, a Reader asks question in a category (history, sports, grammar, geography, etc) and the kids buzz in, old-school gameshow style. There are 4 rounds in each game, each round had a different format. 4 students play at a time, with subs switching in and out each round. (Get it, got it, good!)

Both of our teams had gone undefeated in the practice meets, with Team B tying against another school (hey, that still counts as undefeated!). Saturday morning, just after 8am, we journeyed to a local elementary school and waited for the competition to beign. Claire was nervous & excited, as was everyone! Along with the 4/5 grade teams, there were also 6th grade teams competing against each other, as well as 7/8 grade teams. (Which equals hundreds of stinky kids in a hot, sweaty gym, waiting to be dismissed to their assigned classrooms!)

It was a double elimination tournament which meant that we were in for a long day... A very long day. I'll spare you the details (I know, I know, you're dying inside) but after 8 hours of quizzing, Claire's team made it to the championship round! Team B went undefeated all day and secured a spot in the final round in the early afternoon. Claire's team, on the other hand, lost their 3rd game of the day, which sent them to the loser's bracket. After pulling themselves out by winning 3 more games, had finally made it to the final game too!

Really, you couldn't ask for a better scenario! We have a fantastic Quiz Bowl coach (who happens to be a friend and Claire's Social Studies teacher) who is wonderful. To have both of our teams in the final round, made us winners all around. We were thrilled! ...and incredibly tired. By this time, it was after 4pm, and we arrived at 8:30am. Our lunch consisted of soda, chips and candy, courtesy of the concession stand and my head was pounding. Quiz Bowl is intense. No, really!

We waited a long time for our Reader to arrive with the questions, while our kids & parents hung around in an empty hallway. All the other schools had left after being defeated. We finally began, and everyone was relieved that we had secured 1st and 2nd place and would be going home soon. The room was relaxed, instead of the tension-filled environment that usually exists between 2 rival schools. But in a twist of events, Team A, beat Team B in the championship round. Since it was a double-elimination event, Team B needed to lose twice in order to be knocked out of first place. So... we played a second game! (My head was THROBBING by this point.) Team B came out victorious in the end. But after 8 games and 9 hours of quizzing, we were happy for all of us, and really, really happy that our day had ended.

We took pictures with the giant trophies and our cheers echoed through the deserted hallways. My heart swelled throughout the day as I listened to Claire buzz in and give answers like: "the war of 1812", "contractions", "Paris!", and many others. All that knowledge, all that information, it finally had an outlet!

We celebrated with steaks at Trail Boss. We caught up with Kelly & Nolan to hear the details of Kelly & the Chiefs first district game. Oh yeah, he's now the head coach, but that's another post...