By Ron Zyhaus
As predicted by me, Ron Zyhaus, First Baptist Church Central Florida produced a dominating win in the FQA Atlanta Midseason Invitational Tournament. Fifteen teams, representing organizations were present, including Athens, Pleasant View (SC), Pleasant View (KY), Covenant Life, Genessee Valley, Calvary, Temple, and First Baptist Church of Central Florida. Regretfully, I was not able to attend due to a sickness in the family, so basically all the information in this article comes from Director Brant Callaway; the opinions are mine, but if there are any mistakes and/or blatant lies, the blame should fall squarely on Brant’s shoulders.
The competition was fairly stiff, but after a few rounds several teams had separate themselves from the rest.
Surprises:
The big surprise of the day was Pleasant View (KY). They have been a team on the rise for the past several years, and I did predict them to finish 4th which is bad. But this team separated themselves from both AThens and Pleasant View (SC) as the 2nd best team at the tournament. Aaron Wells (I think the last name is correct, but if not someone please email me) was unbelievable. Too bad for Pleasant View that Aaron is only in 7th grade, but he almost singlehandedly took them into the finals of the tournament.
Disappointments:
I had a couple of disappointments on the day. Neither of the two New York teams (Covenant Life and Genessee Valley) were as good as I thought they would be. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bad, but we’ve come to expect a little more from them. The other disappointment was Athens. Again, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t extremely disappointed–I realize that this is a team which lost its 6 best quizzers from last year, but I thought that they would be able to distinguish themselves as the 2nd best team and challenge FBC-CF for first; they were unable to do either of these.
Expected:
Two of the top teams gave me about what I expected. First, Pleasant View (SC) looks to be establishing themselves as the early favorite to win the South Carolina state championship. They are also a team on the rise. Led by Esther Tobias and Bryce Tyson, who surprisingly never quiz on the same team, I don’t think that they will contend for nationals or any other big tournament but I do think that they are very capable of finishing in the top ten. And then there’s FBC-CF. What can I say? This team is awesome. They are the strongest team I’ve seen at this point in the season although I have to admit that I haven’t seen Old Paths or Capitol City. Matt West mentioned them as possibly having the beginnings of a “dynasty.” He also complimented Coach Debbie warren as “[having] worked hard [at] getting students of all ages to participate in Quiz” and “[having] the most level program of talent from seniors to 2nd graders!!
Final Interesting Thing I Took Away from the Quiz:
I’ve noticed the most amazing trend in Bible Quiz right now. The strongest quizzers seem to be from Middle School. Most notably, Abigail Carbonelle (FBC-CF’s best quizzer as well as the top quizzer in the tournament) is only in the 8th grade well as 4 out of the top 5 including Aaron Wells (Pleasant View (KY)), Bryce Tyson (Pleasant View (SC)), and Bobby Brown (Athens). I’m really not sure what the ramifications of this phenomena are, but I just thought it was interesting. Anyway, that’s it, but if you have any comments, complaints, or suggestions, as always, go to the comments link on the left side of your screen or email me at zyhaus@biblequizzer.net
One last thing that I’m required to say. We haven’t been getting too many people to register their tournaments with us. So if you’d like your tournament posted on biblequizzer.net and get it some added pub, then click on the tournaments link and I think that it’s pretty self-explanatory from there. If you have questions just follow the above directions for getting in touch with us