After they arrive in Atlanta, they park off-site, arrive at the hotel and then check-in. Warren gives the instructions to the players about rooms after getting the room keys:
“Adults will sleep in one room, boys in another room, and girls in a third room” Warren tells his players as they get off the minibus.
It’s so not going to be like the MSNCT, where players were all in one room at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare Chicago because there was only one squad, Lilina ruminates while she waits in line to collect the girls’ room key cards.
Once they make it to their rooms, they take the opportunity to do stuff other than studying or quiz bowl-related activities. Much like Audrey and Pablo going to the hotel’s outdoor pool.
“It would do us no good tomorrow and Sunday if our bodies are out of shape. Yes, quiz bowl is a mind game, but if your body can’t take it, your mind won’t function properly when it counts the most!” Audrey tells her teammates before she leaves the room.
“And then I will go on the weight machine!” Myriam announces to the other VA girls.
A few moments later, the pair arrives at a crowded pool and they face the cold, hard truth. They need to stick to what competitive swimmers call the “gutter lane” if they want to swim laps. That is, the edge of the pool.
Even then, the gutter lane is crowded enough to put a limit on the speed at which they can swim. I can’t swim any faster in this pool! Pablo starts feeling the frustration of being slowed down to a crawl in the pool, but doesn’t show it any more than Audrey does.
The athleticism of the two make other attendees of the pool forget they are dealing with HSNCT participants. After swimming for what feels like forever to them, having overtaken a few more people in the lane, despite having swum only a dozen laps... an opposing quiz bowler brings them back to their reality as they get off the lane:
“I wonder if you have relatives playing at the HSNCT...” an opposing quiz bowler asks them.
“Relatives?” Pablo asks the opposing quiz bowler. “I’m playing at the HSNCT!”
“Me too!” Audrey adds.
“I knew quiz bowl was difficult to recruit for, but your school had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to get four people to play!” the opposing quiz bowler smirks, believing quiz bowl to have a poor reputation at VA, not knowing how it really is for quiz bowl at VA. “Good luck, you’re going to need it!”
Time to use Heather’s obsession to my advantage! Audrey seems to be a little… off. Like these insinuations make her want to lash out at the opposing quiz bowler.
“I get it, the competition is stiff here, but because my basketball coach kept implying that I am the brainiac of the team, he referred me to the quiz bowl team as far back as seventh grade!” Audrey refers to Kent here. “And it goes to show that playing basketball doesn’t interfere with quiz bowl!”
I wonder what kind of school that is, if their resident sports teams’ brainiacs can somehow carry them to the HSNCT… or are they on their sports teams because they are in desperate need to keep the team-wide academics afloat? The opposing quiz bowler questions why the couple even plays quiz bowl, as well as what kind of school VA is. That, even though he doesn’t know they are VAs.
“How did you imagine quiz bowlers to be?” Pablo asks him.
“Given the demands of high school sports, which often means travel teams, camps and year-round conditioning, I just didn’t expect athletes to play quiz bowl!”
Now I have a better idea of what these D1 prospects were doing in high school! Audrey has a flash in her mind about the high school lives of Division I prospects.
And she is reminded of the academic index rules of the Ivy League for some reason, as she sits on a poolside chair: The academic index is, in first approximation, 20 times your GPA plus your SAT superscore, or the SAT equivalent of your ACT superscore, divided by 10. Heather would probably be ecstatic to play for an Ivy, but with her academic record, this means that she would be in the “low” band, i.e. between one and two standard deviations below average. Bump that one more band for me... and that’s assuming I can even score the 34 I got in practice. And yet this means that, the lower your AI, the better you need to be as an athlete to play for an Ivy. Curse Heather! On the other hand, maybe I can play in the Ivy League after all! I am going to need the following, however: take the maximum of 4 AP courses next year, get a 35-36 on the ACT, improve my rim protection.
“You’re by far the most stacked girl on the quiz bowl team. Then again, you’re poised to get captaincy of the basketball team!” Pablo comments on Audrey’s body. “But lately it seems like your basketball talent has fueled your collegiate insecurities”
“It’s weird that you don’t have any, or you’re doing your best to hide it. I understand that your grades aren’t perfect, but now that you climbed into the top ten percent...”
“If our ACT scores are strong enough, maybe we can attend the same college together provided we can both afford it”
“Depends on where we plan on applying, but it’s a little premature. Just focus on playing the best quiz bowl of your life, and go with the flow”
It’s a bigger maybe than it would be for, say, Finn and Carrie, because, at a lot of these fine colleges, unless we both attend Tulane, it’s not a given that we will both get in, Pablo is reminded of what Audrey’s parents told him. And, obviously, a strong showing at the HSNCT will help them both.
But then they return to their respective rooms, and he’s reminded of what makes the other girls on the quiz bowl team different from her. And not just their bulk and height: Audrey easily towers over nearly every VA quiz bowler, male or female, and Pablo is more or less the same height.
The following day, after they get breakfast, they are assembled for one last meeting prior to the card pickup.
“For you, Pablo, you should set aside any implications of HSNCT performance for your future. It’s the first time you’re playing on the national stage, don’t be intimidated by the lack of familiarity with the opposition. So please, pick up the B-team’s card” Warren invites the tight end to pick up the card.
“Venomous! Agendas!” the A-team’s history player starts hollering.
VA B’s card, going into game 1, is the 113 card. And their first game is played on a high floor. The foursome go to the elevator, and VA A rides the same elevator to get to their game, played in a hotel room, too. However, VA A gets off before VA B. And Audrey and Pablo wearing their purple-and-green basketball away uniform and football home uniform respectively.
When VA B arrives to its game room, on a high floor, they find themselves playing in a room that’s almost identical to their own, only with a table installed and a few more chairs on each side.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“This is round one of the morning prelims at the 2030 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the one hundred thirteen card against the two hundred fifty-five card. From Louisiana, we have Venomous Agendas B, from Wisconsin, we have Sheboygan South. Best of luck to both teams, and here’s tossup one…”
I wonder if Sheboygan South is using load management, in that they will let their guard down because VA B is, well, a B-team. Load management is probably more destructive than mongering rumors about who’s playing on a team, as Marcia did when VA first played at the HSNCT! Thomas, the team’s bus driver, a parent of a VA quiz bowl alum, ruminates while the first tossup is read.
“Under Catherine II’s failed Greek Plan, this Russian statesman was promised the throne of Dacia as part of a greater plan to partition the Ottoman possessions in Europe”
Ouch. I knew that Russians fought the Ottomans on several occasions, but never did I hear about any partitioning plan of the Balkans! Lilina starts thinking, before the second clue is read.
“As the favorite of Catherine II, he gained control of the guberniya of Novorossiya” the moderator reads the second clue before Lilina buzzes in mid-clue.
“Potemkin!” Lilina answers.
“Fifteen” The moderator then reads the preamble of the bonus. “This element is used to disinfect swimming pools”
“Chlorine” Pablo answers.
“Chlorine is held responsible for the destruction of this atmospheric layer”
“Ozone” Gerard answers the second bonus part.
“The ozone layer both protects against, and is sustained by, this band of electromagnetic radiation”
“Ultraviolet” Gerard answers again.
“Thirty for the bonus, and here’s tossup two…”
Thomas is bewildered by what they see as a VA B blowout against a team that is seemingly unable to use load management properly. Like this tossup near the halftime mark:
“In this poem, Archbishop Ubaldini is condemned to be endlessly devoured by Count Ugolino, whose death he ordered in life” the moderator reads while Nadine buzzes in.
“Divine Comedy!” Nadine answers.
“Fifteen. For ten points each, answer these questions about voter behavior”
Ouch: this is not going to go well. We qualified for the HSNCT by placing second at Wisconsin Spring, and here we are at the HSNCT, getting blown out like crazy against VA… B? a Redwing (i.e. Sheboygan South) player ruminates after the Redwings failed to answer a single tossup for half a game.
After failing to answer the first bonus part, which was also the hardest, VA B tries to redeem themselves in the second part:
“This phenomenon occurs when electoral maps are redrawn to a party’s advantage”
“Gerrymandering!” Pablo answers.
“By stacking votes in favor a party, gerrymandering causes an increase in that type of vote”
“Wasted vote!” Lilina answers.
“Twenty for the bonus, and that’s the half. Score?” the moderator asks the scorekeeper.
“Venomous Agendas B three hundred forty-five, Sheboygan South nothing” the scorekeeper announces to both teams before the half-time break.
Sheboygan South, on the other hand, even though they already lost the game, still hangs on to notions that it can still score something. Already that, going into the final tossup, VA B has a whopping 570-point lead. “Can the 2030 VA B beat 2025’s VA team and win by a margin greater than 530 points?” Thomas tweets, referring to the 2025 game against Lisgar, also a game #1 at the HSNCT.
“Final tossup…”
But somehow, the final tossup had to fall into an area some people in the quiz bowl world call trash. An area that, for VA, has been the most unpredictable.
“In 2023, it was announced that minors were no longer eligible to be nominated for these awards, causing an award to be awarded to itself” the moderator reads the question.
Here’s my chance to buzz in and finally score some points for the Redwings! The Redwings’ arts and literature player muses, while pressing the buzzer like a syringe.
“Golden Raspberries!” the Redwings’ arts and literature player answers.
“Fifteen”
Shoot! I only knew the Golden Raspberries rewarded the worst of film, but no more than that! Pablo ruminates, wondering why is it that Nadine seemed unable to answer this question. And yet, at least the Redwings got some bonus questions right.
“Twenty for the bonus, and that’s the game. Score?” the moderator asks the scorekeeper.
“Venomous Agendas B five hundred seventy, Sheboygan South thirty-five”
As the first game of the A-team ends, Warren texts Thomas with the result of the A-team’s first game.
And Thomas texts, in turn, the parish radio about both games’ results, so that, back in Jefferson Davis Parish, the people who happen to be tuning in on the parish radio can stay up to date on the VAs at the HSNCT without having to rely on the HSNCT Companion App.
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And at the home of one Cindy, a first grader in town, who’s eating breakfast with her parents:
“Our beloved Venomous Agendas both win their preliminary games at the HSNCT! VA A wins over Berwick, five hundred twenty to one hundred twenty-five, while VA B wins over Sheboygan South, five hundred seventy to thirty-five! This is shaping up to be the best VA quiz bowl team since Imélie five years ago!” the parish radio anchor announces on air.
“Mom, what’s quiz bowl?” Cindy asks in a whiny voice.
“Quiz bowl is a trivia game, whose questions start off hard, and then get easier as more clues are read”
Cindy’s parents are then bombarded with questions about VA quiz bowl. First, the past performance of VAs at the HSNCT, then who Imélie is, and what made her so special to VA’s quiz bowling history. (And Tulane’s, too)
“One day, I will be playing at the HSNCT!” Cindy exclaims. “I want to be like them!”
“For now, all you can do is try to determine what you want most to learn about. Then we’ll encourage you to develop your passion” Cindy’s father advises her.
From what I saw in past quiz bowlers, ever since VA even started playing quiz bowl during the pandemic, quiz bowlers were often drawn from smarter kids, and it seems this community starts training them at ever-younger ages. In the pursuit of quiz bowl glory, as in sports, something seems to be lost in the fanaticism we display towards our youth: the cost our kids are made to pay, Cindy’s dad reflects on the risks of pushing kids too hard.
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Back in Atlanta, however, both VA squads are playing their next game on the same floor. And both blew their opponents out like crazy.
“Pablo, don’t expect the rest of the prelim games to go the same way as the game against Sheboygan South. The longer VA B’s winning streak, the tougher opponents get” Warren warns him.
“I should have told you earlier, Pablo. This is called power-matching and, in quiz bowl, it’s reserved for national championships” Audrey tells him on his way to his game room.
And then some observers see in Lilina and Nadine the dominant forces behind VA B’s strong showing in the first two rounds of the prelims, so much that they’re both in the running for the freshman and sophomore rising stars respectively, since these two girls are clearly the best VA B scorers.
Now it’s clear that feeding us with a steady diet of ICT D2+ packets has borne their fruits. And, of course, Penn Bowls from Marcia’s time at UPenn, ACF Regionals and Nationals sets played by VA alumni, Pablo ruminates, going into the third round of the prelims, played in yet another hotel room on a different floor.
This winning streak lasted VA B a total of four games, and the same goes of VA A as well. Both teams go undefeated into round 5, but then comes this snag to VA B:
“This is round five of the morning prelims at the 2030 NAQT High School National Championship Tournament. This game pits the twenty card against the forty-two card. From Louisiana, we have Venomous Agendas B, from New York, we have Hunter A. Best of luck to both teams”
With VA B trailing by a mere 20 points by the end of regulation time, Hunter A appears poised to win. And yet, no one on VA B seems to be giving up as the last tossup is read:
“Final tossup: British regulations require manufacturers to fireproof objects made with this material”
Ouch. This is not going to go well. Law, much less foreign law, is seldom an area to clue a science tossup with, Pablo ruminates, while neither team appears willing to buzz in on the first clue.
“In 2010, FINA banned swimsuits made of this material” the second clue is then read, while Hunter A’s science player buzzes in.
“Polyurethane!” Hunter A’s science player answers.
“Fifteen” the moderator rules, causing VA B to hunch their heads.
Pablo starts praying not so much for the outcome of this game, but for their next opponent to be more manageable than Hunter A has been.
“Twenty for the bonus, and that’s the game. Score?”
“Hunter A three hundred eighty, Venomous Agendas B three hundred twenty-five” the scorekeeper announces.