The following article comes courtesy of Mr. William Hales, the tournament director of the Blue Ridge Invitational. Mr. Hales, thanks for once again putting on a great tournament.
On Saturday March 4th, the 4th Annual Blue Ridge Invitational Bible Quizzing Tournament was held in Asheville NC. With 26 teams showing up this year, the tournament has grown every year. While most of the teams were from PQA and the Greenville area, almost a dozen teams did come in from across the Southeast. Conflicts with state tournaments (both quizzing and basketball) kept a few teams from being able to attend. With quizzing tournaments for most of the southern states coming up in the next few weeks, the tournament is designed to prepare teams for State and Nationals.
The Morning Round Robin (Senior High)
Some of the round robin quizzes were not very competitive considering the high caliber teams like Pleasant View Ky and Faith were quizzing less experienced teams. There were some surprises in the morning though. Spring City got off to a very slow start in their first quiz of the day with eleven errors to get a low to Pleasant View Ky’s 2nd team and Hampton Park. By the end of the day the three girls from Virginia were doing exceptionally well. The Church of Greenville showed that their performance at PQA this year was not a fluke. Mark Crosby led them to three straight High wins before meeting PV KY before lunch. Pleasant View SC also started the day with Ester Tobias and David Viers quizzing well and getting two high wins before taking middle on a tiebreaker and a low after being out jumped on the 20th question. In the morning rounds 7 of the 22 quizzes were decided on the 20th question or a tiebreaker.
The Afternoon Elimination Rounds
The Pleasant View Ky #1 team was the only team of the morning with all High wins so they received a bye for the first elimination round. None of the first round quizzes went as the seeding predicted, with #5 seed Faith #3 getting a low to Wood County and PV SC. PV KY #2 picked up their first low when Ben Byler from Wood County took the last 2 questions. Gospel Light #2 was the first team eliminated when Gospel Light #1 won a tiebreaker. The Church of Greenville team picked up both of their lows in quizzes against Faith #1 and Faith #2. The host team Temple led by Alaina George was able to get one High win before taking two quick lows to be eliminated early in the afternoon. After almost being eliminated early in the afternoon, the three girls from Spring City did a wonderful job to finish the tournament in 3rd place. The Finals featured Faith #2 led by Katherine Shumate against Pleasant View Ky #1 with Aaron and Autumn Wells (#1 and #2 quizzers for the day). In both of the final quizzes, KY jumped out to a 180-20 lead which carried them to the wins.
Junior High Tournament
The Junior High tournament featured 10 teams with Calvary #1, Faith, and PV SC #1 all having 3 highs and 1 middle for the morning Round Robin. The teams from Temple and Bethany got two lows in the early elimination rounds. PVKY was given a low by Faith and PV SC on a tiebreaker question. PV Ky then quizzed their way through the lower bracket to get back up to third for the day. The Finals featured Calvary #1 with Tyler Zeimer facing Faith led by Meredith Bryson. In the first head-to-head match-up, Calvary led 160-140 on Question 15. Faith took the next 4 questions to lock up the win. The second match-up was determined when Faith took 7 of 8 questions in the middle of the quiz.