Chipola Brain Bowl Ties for Second in NAQT Championship Tournament
On Saturday, Feb. 26, Inver Hills Community College of Minnesota won the 2022 NAQT Community College Championship Tournament with an undefeated run. Their 11-0 run through the field placed them above 15 teams from eight states. The field included defending champion Jefferson Community and Technical College of Kentucky and Chipola College of Florida, who finished tied for second with a 9-2 record. Fourth place went to Suffolk Community College-Ammerman Campus of New York, which finished with an 8-3 record.
The tournament was held online for the second consecutive year. Teams competed over Zoom from their homes or home campuses. The teams played in two round-robin pools and the top four teams in each pool played against each other. After 11 rounds, the Inver Hills team was the sole undefeated team, and was two games ahead of all teams in the field. At the end of Round 9 Jefferson was also 9-0, finishing the other preliminary pool undefeated, but lost in Round 10 to Chipola's A team 230-190, before falling to Inver Hills in Round 11 285-220.
The tournament's leading scorer was Owen Riley of Inver Hills. During the pool rounds Riley had a 116.82 scoring average. Second was Joe Feldman of Suffolk County-Ammerman with 89.09 scoring average.
Taylor Young of Chipola College was also named an all-star, finishing sixth overall in individual scoring.
Quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for teams of four students. Quiz bowl teams use buzzers to answer questions about science, math, history, literature, mythology, geography, social science, current events, sports, and popular culture. The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration, since no individual player is likely to be an expert in all subject areas. Participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.
Since 2002, NAQT has awarded a championship for the top Community College quiz bowl team. After their performance on Saturday, Inver Hills, Jefferson, and Chipola have been invited to the 2022 Intercollegiate Championship Tournament, which will be held in Chicago, in person for the first time since 2020. The online 2021 event saw 64 teams from colleges and universities compete.
The full results of the tournament are available at https://www.naqt.com/stats/tournament/standings.jsp?tournament_id=12403