By Ron Zyhaus
I am not as good at giving reviews as Lindsay, Startup, or Poston, but I was able to stick around for an extra day and watch the elementary finals in Greenville.
I was intrigued that the High School’s top two teams were both fielding elementary teams. This tells me that they will be on the top for years to come! It was also interesting that Matt West talked a lot about teams who were not there. Maybe next year there will be more teams.
Now in watching the early quizzes in Aaron Wells and Alex D’Amico’s rooms, I thought that the three teams from Florida were the best. The teams from New Jersey and Kentucky were a little behind. The local teams and the team from Ohio were at the bottom. That is why I was very surprosed to learn that Southside was third in their division of five.
While the early rounds were decent, though late because of Matt West arriving late, the competition really seemed to pick up after the “Elementary Break.” I saw Parsippany and Pleasant View come down to a tie-breaker question and then Calvary (FL) be stretched to a 21st question by the other Pleasant View team.
An extended lunch occurred next and this is when teams were quickly eliminated. We went from 10 teams to 4 teams in a matter of two rounds. Parsippany 2, despite a great performance in the morning fell in a quiz where they only had 60 points. Parsippany 1 scored 160 in the next round, but they still fell to Pleasant View 2. Unfortunately, both of these teams left disappointed, but both had winning records and successful days. I really hope these quizzers continue in years to come.
The final four were set. The two semifinal matchups were Open Door against FBCCF in one bracket and Calvary (FL) against PVKY 2 in the other. Now, I have never seen this, but this tournament featured best 2-of-3 instead of a regular double elimination tournament. Calvary quickly dispensed of Pleasant View and I went with several others into the Open Door-FBCCF matchup. This was a three quiz match and FBCCF finally prevailed.
The finals were then Calvary and FBCCF and this matchup was also a best-of-3 format. This matchup also went the full three quizzes after a discrepancy between how many questions FBCCF #3 had. I thought her name was Paige, but Matt kept calling her something like Julie, so I was thoroughly confused. Anyway, FBCCF won by 20 points in a very competitive final quiz. I am not sure how many people have ever seen really competitive elementary Bible Quizzing, but it was very exciting and I think that if a lot of teams come, the Friday event may grow to be as big as the Thursday event.