Monday, March 15, 2004
Tournament Overview
The 2004 Eastern Midlands Quizbowl tournament was held Monday evening, March 15, 2004 at Waverly High School. The tournament champion this year was Elkhorn High School, who won the championship in an exciting pair of matches against Norris High. The Norris A team, consisting of Joel Keralis, Jared Wiggins, Evan Brunkow, Ben Hage and Jon Herms, finished the day with wins over Platteview B, Elkhorn B, Plattsmouth A, and Elkhorn A to reach the finals without a loss.
The Norris B team, consisting entirely of freshmen Andrew Keralis, Evan Egger, Shane Lowe, Alex Baruth and Kyle Lococo, had an excellent day to finish fourth in the sixteen team tournament. After dropping their first match to Platteview, they beat Nebraska City B, Elkhorn B, Blair A and Gretna A to reach the final four before finally being eliminated by Plattsmouth A in the third-place match.
2004 EMC Runners-Up
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Norris A Team - EMC Runners-Up: Joel Keralis, Jared Wiggins, Jon Herms,
Evan Brunkow, Ben Hage, Coach Tom Brazee. |
| 2004 EMC Tournament | Place | School | Record | Champion | Elkhorn A | 6-1 | Runner Up | Norris A | 4-2 | Third | Plattsmouth A | 5-2 | Fourth | Norris B | 4-2 | Fifth | Waverly A | 3-2 | Fifth | Gretna A | 2-2 | Seventh | Platteview A | 2-2 | Seventh | Blair A | 2-2 |
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Norris A Team
The Norris A team, consisting of Jared Wiggins, Joel Keralis, Evan Brunkow, Ben Hage and Jon Herms, started the sixteen-team tournament with a win over the 'B' team from Platteview by a score of 105-45 and followed that up with a hard-fought win over the 'B' team from Elkhorn. In the third round, Norris came up against the eventual third-place team from Plattsmouth and dispatched them 125-85. During this match, Evan Brunkow had a particularly good match, answering six toss-ups.
The rest of the tournament might almost qualify as an epic, seeing three consecutive matches between Norris and Elkhorn, the top two finishers each of the last two years. In the winner's bracket final of the double-elimination tournament, Joel Keralis answered eight tossups as the Titans handled the defending champions 140-100. Norris established an early lead and held it throughout the match. Elkhorn dropped down to the loser's bracket, where they defeated Plattsmouth to win their way back to the championship matches against Norris. During the first of two finals, Norris established an early lead and held it until Elkhorn answered the last two tossups and one bonus to beat the Titans in a heart-breaker by the score of 120-115. With each team now having one loss, a second final was needed. In the second final, Elkhorn jumped to an early lead and held the lead most of the match. With about two minutes left in the match, Jared Wiggins answered a tossup to tie the score at 120-all. No one successfully answered a question during the last two minutes of the match forcing the match into a sudden-death overtime. The tension in the room was palpable as no one answered successfully on the first three overtime questions. The fourth question, "Who was Abraham Lincoln's vice-president during his first term?" was answered by the Blair captain to give the Antlers the EMC Title by the score or 130-120. The answer to the winning question was Hannibal Hamlin, in case you didn't know.
| Norris A Results | Team 1 | Score | Score | Team 2 | Norris A | 105 | 45 | Platteview B | Norris A | 130 | 80 | Elkhorn B | Norris A | 125 | 85 | Plattsmouth A | Norris A | 140 | 100 | Elkhorn A | Norris A | 115 | 120 | Elkhorn A | Norris A | 120 | 130 | Elkhorn A |
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| Individual Stats - Norris A | Match | Joel K | Jared W | Evan B | Jon H | Ben H | Platteview B | 2 | 5 | 2 | Elkhorn B | 2 | 6 | 2 | Plattsmouth A | 6 | 4 | 1 | Elkhorn A | 8 | 1 | 1 | Elkhorn A | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | Elkhorn A | 6 | 3 |
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| Norris B Team - EMC Fourth Place
Finishers - Evan Egger, Alex Baruth, Shane Lowe, Kyle Lococo, Andrew Keralis, Coach Tom Brazee |
Norris B Team - Fourth Place
The Norris B team, consisting of freshmen Andrew Keralis, Shane Lowe, Evan Egger, Alex Baruth and Kyle Lococo had a terrific day, finishing fourth in the sixteen-team tournament. The Norris Bs, breaking new ground for a Norris B team, finished ahead of the A teams from Blair, Nebraska City, Platteview, Gretna and Waverly.
In their opening match of the day, this group of talented freshmen lost a close match to Platteview A, 95-80. In the first match in the loser's bracket, Norris B beat Nebraska City B 90-50, leading by scores of 45-0 and 80-25 along the way. In the next round, the freshmen, led by strong play from Andrew Keralis, beat Elkhorn B 110-40, a team that had given Norris A a very close match in the previous round. In the third round of the loser's bracket, Norris took on a very good Blair A team, a third-place finisher at the Elkhorn Invitational, and used very balanced scoring to beat them by a score of 90-65. You could see the confidence of the Norris freshman growing by the minute as they took on an excellent Gretna team in the fourth round. This Gretna team had lost to the Norris A team by just 5 points en route to placing fourth at the 24-team Bellevue Invitational. A controversial ending to the regulation match put the match into a five-question overtime, where the Norris team answer three questions and the Gretna team answered none. Thus the final score of 140-110 was not indicative of the closeness of the match. This Cinderella team's glass slippers finally fell off when they lost to the Plattsmough A team, 130-60.
The team finished the day with a 4-2 record against teams that were all older and more experienced.
| Norris B Results | Team 1 | Score | Score | Team 2 | Norris B | 80 | 95 | Platteview A | Norris B | 90 | 50 | Neb City B | Norris B | 110 | 40 | Elkhorn B | Norris B | 90 | 65 | Blair A | Norris B | 140 | 110 | Gretna A | Norris B | 60 | 130 | Plattsmouth A |
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| Individual Stats - Norris A | Match | Andrew K | Shane L | Evan E | Kyle L | Alex B | Platteview A | 4 | 2 | Neb City B | 5 | 1 | Elkhorn B | 7 | 2 | Blair A | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Gretna A | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Plattsmouth A | 1 | 3 | 1 |
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