Hello Bible Quiz Fans,
The Southeast Bible Quiz Association held their annual Year-End Tournament yesterday at the Memorial Chapel at Temple Baptist Church in Powell, TN. It was an exciting event for those involved. Grace Christian Academy only had two quizzers competing so they combined with the quizzers from Temple Baptist to form the team named Temple of Grace. This is the first year that Ridgeview Baptist has ever competed in Bible quiz, but they dominated the regular season and competed at a very high level in Division 1 in the first major tournament of the year in Athens, GA. With a desire to improve on a Division 1 level, Ridgeview requested that Carson Balka and Nathaniel Sheets the best Division 1 quizzers from Temple Baptist be allowed to compete against their teams. They are not typically allowed to compete in the SBQA because it is supposed to be a beginner league. To help the development of Ridgeview Baptist, Carson and Nathaniel competed only against Ridgeview teams and declined to receive a medal so that less experienced quizzers could receive rewards for their hard work. The round robin competition started at 11:00 AM and finished with Ridgeview 2 as the number one seed with the only undefeated record followed by Temple of Grace as the second seed with one loss. Ridgeview 1 was the third seed and Lakeview Baptist was the fourth seed.
In the first round of the double elimination tournament Temple of Grace got locked in a very close quiz match with Ridgeview 1 that was tied at 170 after question 17. Kierstin Balka then got a correct answer on question 18 and Scott Firebaugh sealed the win with a correct answer on question 19. In the second round, Ridgeview 2 faced Temple of Grace in an exciting struggle to the last question. Temple of Grace raced to an early 100 to 40 lead on question 7, but Ridgeview 2 came to life after Carson Balka quizzed out and tied the score at 120 on question 12. Temple of Grace then got the next three questions and it looked like it was almost over but Ridgeview then got questions 16 through 18 correct to take a 180 to 170 lead. Kierstin Balka won the jump on question 19 and gave a correct answer to give her team a 190 to 180 lead. On the final question, Caleb Williams won the jump with the possibility of quizzing out without error, but he answered incorrectly and Temple of Grace won the quiz match with a correct answer on the rebound by Kierstin. After the third round of double elimination, the only teams left were Ridgeview 2 and Temple of Grace. Due to their first loss to Temple of Grace, Ridgeview 2 would be required to win two in a row to win the tournament. In the first playoff quiz match, Temple of Grace once again got out to a quick 100 to 40 lead when Carson quizzed out on question 7. Then Ridgeview 2 took off like a rocket with brilliant quizzing by Caleb Williams and Blake Brewster. Josh Williams sealed the win for Ridgeview 2 on question 18 with a correctly answered rebound question.
In the final playoff quiz match, Temple of Grace got out to an early 100 to 20 point lead when Carson quizzed out on question 6. At that point, Ridgeview 2 started getting engaged but Nathaniel Sheets got on a roll and sealed the win with a correct answer on question 15. As a result, Temple of Grace was the SBQA Tournament champion for 2019 and Ridgeview Baptist will emerge a much better team in the future. I am warning the quizzing world now to look out for Ridgeview Baptist. The sky is the limit for that young team!
I have attached the team results and the individual results for your review. It was a great year of quizzing and I am encouraged to think about all of the scripture that was stored away in minds and hearts of the quizzers this year!
In Christ and in His Word,
Michael Balka