Bluebirds On to 2A State Scholars Bowl
Goessel’s Scholars Bowl was pumped up in their Pool A final day of January regional round at Ell-Saline High School. The Bluebirds showed strong and used incredible virtuosity from team captain Edel Miller to overcome two speed bumps and finished 7-0 in pool. Post-season team members Miller, Nathan Impson, Chris Strecker, Daniel Uhlig, Annalise Miller, and Jan Wolters moved into the championship round against Sterling, Salina-Sacred Heart, Hillsboro, Belleville-Republic County, and Inman. Sterling came back from a 35-10 deficit to edge the Blue 45-50 in the championship round first match, but Goessel came back strong with two wins v. Inman and Hillsboro to go to 2-1. With 4 tie-breakers against Sacred Heart, Goessel saw a potential trip to state slipping away in the 50-60 loss. Moving back to their “lucky room,” however, the Bluebirds’ Miller shone with 6 answers and moved to 3-2 with a key head to head win against Republic County in the final round of the championship round-robin. In the common area, tournament organizers emerged from a long huddle after discerning a 4 way tie of 3-2 teams. Comparing head to head records, Republic County emerged in 4th, Goessel 3rd, Sacred Heart in 2nd and Sterling emerged as the regional winner. Only the top 3 in each regional move on to state. Congratulations, Bluebirds on a trip to the 2A State Scholars Bowl event February 9th at Inman!
Pool Round
Smith Center Round 1
In 10 of 12 rounds today, Goessel got the 10 points on the foreign language question. Edel took the Blue up 30-20 on Cassandra and ovaries, then Nate scored on 1000 joules off a SC miss. Daniel answered Marshall Plan and Edel got collateral. In math, Daniel came up big with the surface volume of a cube 70-30 and Edel answered at a frantic pace in Fine Arts with Degas, Greatest Showman and Elizabeth Warren. This one was a great start 100-30. The A-3 room warned “due dates are closer than they appear” and there was a white board offering students the chance to put up “dead words” on the board. 1-0
Ellsworth Round 2
Daniel translated “My Shirt is….” for 10, then Edel correctly answered re: Martin Luther King Jr.’s letters re nonviolence. Chris buzzed in after Ellsworth to get Future Perfect as the verb tense to jump to 30-0. Ellsworth was back in it on Silk Road, but Edel coasted out again with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Goessel got 29 degrees in math to lead 50-30. The next math question created confusion and was thrown out and it held steady until Ellsworth got shading in Fine Arts. No one could nail the other Fine Arts questions or year in review, and the Bluebirds held on for the 50-40 win. 2-0
Belleville Republic County Round 3
Daniel’s “I read a book…. Russian class” led and Edel went up 20-10. Comic strip as book = Gothic novel took the Blue up 30-10, but Ellsworth zoomed up in Social Science to tie at 30-30. All was quiet during the reasons for impeachment and on each math question. Edel punched in with Matthew Brady as Civil War photographer and it looked momentarily like Ellsworth had tied in Year in Review with the 1st state to make a requirement on public boards = California. However, it was ruled that the answer had come before being recognized, so Ellsworth was penalized 5 points instead and on the final question there was no answer, so Goessel emerged the winner 40-25. 3-0
Sterling Round 4
Sterling was recognized as one of the top teams in attendance, so a good round against the Black Bears would lift the hopes of the Bluebird squad. Back in the “dead words” room it was knotted at 20 after the foreign language and language arts in Emily Dickenson and cacophony. No one could crack the science code, but Edel got Henry Clay in Social Science as the great compromiser. After Sterling missed the question on two countries emerging from a land-locked part of Europe, Goessel’s Euro-steppers Jan and Daniel got Czech Republic and Slovakia correct after consulting to lead 40-20. Sterling got Miranda v. Arizona, but Daniel hit it big with 0% as the probability of 17 coin flips coming out equal. Edel notched another big answer with Gothic and this one ended 60-40. 4-0
Ell-Saline Round 5
Edel got “they washed their hands” to start and scored Dostoevsky in language arts in the “lucky room” A-2. This one went through science until Edel again jumped in with the two major branches of Islam to lead 30-10. Math also went over the competitors’ heads until Daniel correctly answered coordinates (-25,4) to lead 40-10. In fine arts “ I think therefore I am” was Descartes c/o Edel and Edel also got the Humperdinck opera. This one sailed through 60-10 against the home-standing Ell-Saline squad. 5-0
Hutchinson Trinity Round 6
Against Trinity, Goessel absolutely put on the blitz. Jan shone with three answers including something about “without milk…. It is impossible….” Edel got Oscar Wilde and Red Herring for a fallacy of argument. Jan came up with diffusion in biochemical movement and then answered Dunkirk as the WWII evacuation city on the north French coast. Edel pulled on her math hat and got the surface area of a box, then put on the hyper drive to finish with “avant garde” and The Nutcracker. In the year in review, Edel answered white rhino, but the correct answer was Northern White Rhino. 80-0. 6-0
Marion Round 7
Edel led again in the foreign language translation. The judge observed that more students this year were answering the foreign language question correctly. Edel got Ballad, Dept of Homeland Security, and Crimean War as when the Charge of the Light Brigade was written. In an almost untrackable flurry, the Senior answered pocket veto and had this contest been a basketball game the opposing coach would have called timeout. Daniel nailed 225 after calculating what B and R multiplied together would be if Z = 1 and A = 26 to lead 60-10. Eden answered Filigree and no one could get the new prime minister of Australia in Year in Review. This one left a great feeling going into the championship round, finishing undefeated in pool play. 70-20 7-0
Championship Round
Out of pool A, Goessel, Sterling, and Republic County emerged. Out of the Pool B group of Bennington, Canton-Galva, Ellinwood, Herington, Hillsboro, Inman, and Salina-Sacred Heart, the three joining in the championship round were: Hillsboro, Inman and Salina-Sacred Heart. Of the six in the championship round, only three go on to state tournament at Inman.
Sterling A-4 Room Championship Round 1 Team from Pool A
Daniel led with “My back hurts and my head also” but Goessel was penalized 5 for an interruption on Hindu god. Eden got stream of consciousness to go up 15-0 and the Blue looked in the driver’s seat against Sterling with the 1774 laws the British slapped on the American colonies and Chris got a huge answer with the 16th century political movement to lead 35-20 after Social Science. Sterling stormed back, though with Integral and the correct quadrant position of a circle. Edel got negative space to lead 45-30, but the Black Bears snuck in opera to close to 45-40 and on the Year in Review question buzzed in quicker than the Bluebirds with 3-24-18 as the global date for “March for our Lives” to win 45-50. Goessel was down 0-1 in the championship round after 1.
Inman A-2 Room Round 2
Back in the lucky room, Goessel could not gain traction out of the chute, missing its first language translation question and no one could pull off the language arts. Edel scored on ecosystem and Daniel got the new planet definition, then scored big on the molar mass of HClO3. 30-10. In Social Science Edel scored on Climate Change from the April 2016 London conference and promptly hit the buzzer for Maslow. Daniel quickly came up with the loud answer “6” on how many games it would take a baseball team to get to a certain record. No one pulled off answers the rest of the match and the Bluebirds were back in it with a big 60-10 round. Aretha Franklin’s pink Cadillacs on her coffin were the year in review answer. 1-1
Hillsboro Round 3
Daniel got “Why should …. Early in Am.” This one looked tight as neither team were buzzing in questions of rhetoric, elastic collision, and plants growing on top of one another. Hillsboro got counter reformation to tie at 10-10 until Daniel boldly answer “3” as the correct answer in math and then he nailed 135 as the supplemental angle 3X the given angle after Hillsboro missed to lead 30-10. Hillsboro’s Red #2 nearly fell off his seat after Edel beat him to the buzzer in Year in Review about Steven Hawking & Newton/Darwin. This was a big one in a close match 40-20. 2-1
Salina- Sacred Heart Round 4
This one also got off to a shaky start with a Bluebird miss on the language translation. Edel scored Pyramis and Thisbe from Metamorphosis. Sacred Heart looked like they were going to run away with it in Science and led 10-50 after Social Science. In a huge sequence, Goessel came storming back with Chris pulling out 2520 degrees on the convex polygon question. Edel responded after a Sacred Heart miss with 0, Monet, and Rossini for the William Tell Overture composer. The four fantastic quick hits left it at 50-50 with the Year in Review as the only question left. Who was the 2018 winner of the Kentucky Derby (Justify)? No one had that one in their hip pocket and this one went to three more tie-breaker questions with answers of abduction, Deb and the final question was a bit muffled, stated as the group of revolutionary “markists”….. the Sacred Heart team heard Marxist correctly and buzzed in to win with Bolsheviks. This one could have been decided by a horse race, but instead Goessel was looking at a potential finish clearly out of the top three at 2-2.
Belleville-Republic County Round 5 Team from Pool A
In their second encounter with Republic, Goessel was in their lucky room A-2 and rolled 50-0 on language from Jan, anachronism from Edel, Leaves of Grass, diurnal and the Mexican leader from Edel. Goessel was penalized 5 on an interruption on an 1824 Supreme Court ruling, Republic gained some traction to get to 45-20, but Edel put it away with Bach and Rosie the Riveter in Year in Review to close out the championship round 65-20.
The teams returned to the common area and awaited the determination of places and who would move on to state. Early returns showed that Goessel was at 3-2 and as runners emerged from the competition rooms, Sacred Heart, Sterling and Republic all showed up with 3-2 records. Hillsboro went 1-4 and Inman 2-5. Goessel beat Republic head to head. Sterling beat Goessel and Sacred Heart head to head. Sacred Heart beat Goessel and Republic head to head. Sterling was declared the winner, Sacred Heart 2nd, Goessel 3rd, and Belleville-Republic County 4th .
The Bluebirds are coached by Braden Unruh and Marcia Brubaker. Thank you to Dr. John Fast for being present at Ell-Saline today for this event.
Congratulations to the Goessel Bluebird scholars bowl team and good luck at State!
-Karl Brubaker
