A Tale of Two Academic Teams

Chapter 23: Drop or Break

Chantal's mother can't help but think about her daughter playing extemp as she drives the family to NCSU for the second day of extemp competition, which is also the prompt for the other two subgroups to depart for theirs, and the need to review the game room assignments prior to departure, both to judge and to play. The parish newspaper compared my daughter to Lily Nellans or McKinley Paltzik; these girls were extemp legends, not sure the comparison holds, given that the parish newspaper historically overestimated their comparables, but Chantal is certainly, to me anyway, a girl for whom "very smart" wouldn't do her justice. And, in our region, girls are more sheltered than boys so they have more space to develop what intellectual gifts they have, Chantal's father muses while reading the latest issue of the parish newspaper. And, going into round 5, all five players hold on to their hopes they will get to play at least in the afternoon.

At this point, Chantal is in the best position to break, since she is several points better than 60th place going into round 5. As for Sadie, she realizes just how rough it would have been at the ToC since her opponent broke at the ToC. However, neither team dominated the game. When the results arrive, which aren't disclosed in the game room, unlike rounds 1 and 4, they were playing another impromptu quiz bowl game with other contestants:

"Timeout; we need to check on Tabroom for the results of round five" a contestant asks Sadie.

"We need to check ours, too!"

One winning ballot and one losing ballot. We might still break but our next opponent will be hungry also. On the plus side, we will get two judges who know what they are doing, Sadie thinks, sighing after the fact. The quiz bowl game then continues, realizing that people seem drawn to play quiz bowl with her precisely because of her nickname on the nat-circuit. Because so many of them questioned why is it that Sadie was even nicknamed Quiz Bowl Sadie to begin with, thanks to them not knowing what quiz bowl even is.

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Meanwhile, a lot of teams with 5 winning ballots in policy also attended more inter-state tournaments than the VAs did, and Rebecca's next opponent even played at the ToC. Might not have made a splash at the ToC, but her pair was able to pry a draw because of the opponent committing too many breaches of topicality under the form of kritiks, and only one of the two judges actually cared about breaches of topicality (i.e. making off-topic arguments).

As soon as they get their pairing assignment, Sadie and Joe both make way to the room, but they can't help but get into an argument about the implications of breaking for college:

"Sadie, remember what I told you last night at Duke: there's no way I can attend Duke without breaking here! We must be on our A-game here! Is that clear, Sadie? You have the HSNCT, I don't!" Joe shouts at her.

"This is so unlike you, Joe; during the season I was the one screaming at you. Also our opponents are opponents we played against at Columbia" Sadie then announces to them.

"Who?" 

"Whitman GY. Our last game against them was tight, they kept us on our toes all game. But why, suddenly, did you decide that you want to attend Duke?"

"Duke is "work hard, play hard". Chantal is focused on international relations, it's obvious from her top six choices"

Further down the hallway, the Whitman GY players may be tempted to curse the schematic, because they hoped to be playing new opponents they didn't play against in previous tournaments but their coach, back from the tab room, had other ideas.

"Let's not forget: we're going into this round with seven winning ballots, and our opponents, too. No matter what happens, someone will break. Let's not squander this opportunity to get two of the best judges in the pool!" Whitman's coach harangues them.