While the male players' season is now over, the female players' is not. They now have the team's practices to themselves as they keep a brief but close watch on the latest FTPFTC ranking of high school female and minority players, especially Bethany, who, going into the HSNCT, is a top-3 female high school history/RPMSS player, and top-5 overall. And, of course, its article on Tulane's Division II ICT victory, which is about the first team winning a national collegiate quiz bowl title with more than one female player on its roster.

I guess Patricia isn't ranked, but she mentioned that her school used her allotment of two tournaments starting before 3PM on NAQT tournaments held in the Missouri side of the Kansas City region, and she easily was Olathe Northwest's best player there. That said, the kind of teams with top individual scorers is not usually the kind of teams that have what it takes to win tournaments since players on winning teams usually don't buzz in as often as top individual scorers, Imélie reflects on what interests her most in the latest For 10 points, fix this community ranking of women and minority high school players, with all the same sub-rankings as the collegiate edition released last week prior to the ICT. But rather than to divide along undergraduate and graduate lines, the high school sub-rankings divide by large and small schools instead.

"Even though I don't know when your birthday is, please consider the plane ticket to New York as well as your entry fee to the WNCC as your birthday gift from my part. You earned it, you're clearly part of the Green Wave's quiz bowl future for the next three years" Imélie then explains to Alyssa.

When the Green Wave won the ICT, since I expected to keep playing for the Green Wave, and also to return to the ICT, I signed up for World of Hyatt, its frequent guest program, so I booked 2 nights at the Hyatt Grand Central. But that means that I must plan everything to do with quiz bowl travel with Hyatt hotels in mind, Imélie thinks about the implications for the next 2 (or 3 if the MGM component proves less manageable than years 1 and 2 of the MBA) years. Winning at the WNCC will put the Green Wave in a much better position to negotiate a bigger budget for an 8-player squad with the university, so that will only need to claim to my employer what expenses I personally incur.

So Sun picks both women up, both wearing Tulane hoodies, on Friday, and drive them to the airport.

"Good luck, honey. It's your turn to shine under the spotlight and I'm so proud of you, not only for the ICT, but also for qualifying for this competition. May this season end with..." Sun tells both as they step off the car.

"Helluva Hullabaloo. Thank you"

The tournament's staff is mostly made up of NYU players, irrespective of gender, with a Columbia player or two for good measure. But they explain that the tournament has different formats depending on the division:

"For the undergraduate division, the players will be split into two pools of ten players each, the best two players of each pool will enter a final round-robin in the afternoon for medals. If, at the end of the medal round, the top two finishers are tied based on win-loss record, there will be a final game for the gold. For the graduate division, only if a tiebreaker is necessary for gold will extra games be played beyond the preliminary round. The ruleset in use will be ACF but with powers" the tournament director explains to the attendees.

And the pools for the undergraduate division are allotted in a "snake" in descending order of FTPFTC ranking, Alyssa realizes, upon looking at the grid of group assignments. Both players go in with high expectations and Imélie realizes that her tournament could end with only nine games, and Alyssa has a tougher road to victory here in this tournament.

And wow. Players often feel less complexed in this tournament over stereotype threat, and obviously Alyssa and Imélie feel that the least. There might be male staffers, or male attendees in the audience, mostly some NYU students. But they both feel that stereotype threat will still remain an issue depending on the people in the game room, especially for their opponents. Kind of like a UChicago player who, on her opener, freezes more often on the buzzer than she would like, especially on science questions, leading to this 530-25 game against Imélie in the opening round. I have to win every game and not simply nail-biters as I was used to at the ICT, or ACF Winter! Imélie thinks, going into the second preliminary game.

Meanwhile, Alyssa, in her opening game, feels like she needs to protest an answer to a tossup, of which she is reminded at ACF Winter. About chemotherapy vs pharmacotherapy. When she buzzes in before the power mark, she then gives her answer...

"Chemotherapy"

"Neg five"

"Protest on tossup seven" Alyssa informs the moderator.

"Noted"

That was the only protest of this particular game. But she feels the need to switch into a higher gear in her "mental gearbox" to avoid having to go through the adjudication of protests, since protests are not adjudicated if it doesn't change the win-loss record of the game. And, even with that interrupt being eaten, she still manages to win, albeit by a 45-point margin, so the result arrives at the end of the game.

"The protest has been denied" the moderator informs Alyssa.

"Noted"

At least I'm not bitter about the protest not being resolved but I have seven or eight more games to win, Alyssa keeps thinking when she goes into the second game of the tournament. Yes, Alyssa struggles a bit with science questions, but Imélie struggles a bit with literature and fine arts.

Imélie always seem to have to wait until the For 10 points cue before she can actually buzz in on a literature tossup, and one of those she could actually answer had this for a post-FTP clue:

"For ten points, name this eighteenth-century epistolary French novel about seduction games among the aristocracy, authored by Choderlos de Laclos"

"Liaisons Dangereuses!" Imélie shouts after buzzing in, unnaturally fast for her own level of literary knowledge.

"Ten. For ten points each..."

That was Alyssa's kind of questions, I think she would have powered through it. Man did that tossup take forever since it had clues spread over a hundred words or so, Imélie muses while it was precisely what happened with Alyssa on that specific tossup. A free 15 points for her; as the pair rack up wins against their respective opponents, they feel good about their chances to win their respective pools.

Then comes the game against the NYU graduate student, where the limited Violets crowd rally around their own (and with a male spectator or two that is seemingly more interested in the players' looks than their intellects, presumably dragged into it because either a relative or a friend is playing or staffing), and Imélie clearly feels the crowd being more hostile to her than in the previous two games. Each question Imélie answers correctly is accompanied by a wave of boos across the game room, and she will have dozens of opportunities to get booed. Luckily none of these boos amount to blurting an answer, and that would mean throwing out the question.

Why is it that they boo me of all people? Do they do this indiscriminately? Or do they do this with me in particular? Imélie ponders while the boos intensify as the gap widens between Violet, the NYU player, and herself. Especially since the chemistry question is answered about a quarter of the way through.

"Potassium nitrate"

"Fifteen"

"Boo..." a very loud chorus of booing ensues, and a decision is made by the moderator at halftime, after the resulting bonus on child psychology has been resolved, with Imélie scoring 20 more points.

"The game shall continue with no spectators allowed! The spectators are hereby ordered to evacuate the room!" the moderator throws out the spectators for the second half of the game.

Violet is relieved to see that the game would proceed without people booing in front of her, but the booing spectators spread to other game rooms, including the one Alyssa finds herself playing in.

The two spectators than end up in Alyssa's game room keep booing the other Green Wave player when she answers a question correctly, which causes the crowd to accidentally blurt out the bonus to this bonus part, which is the last one.

"Because of the crowd accidentally revealing the answer to this bonus part by booing, a replacement bonus must be read, and is worth no less than ten points, and no more than twenty points."

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Of which she scores the twenty points on the first two parts of the replacement bonus, which carries the consequence that, even though Alyssa's game is tied at the end of the final regulation tossup, and Alyssa answered it correctly, gameplay is stopped because of the need to replace the bonus thrown out by the crowd booing.

"Please stand by while I'm getting some replacement questions from the tournament director" the moderator in Alyssa's game room announces to the two players.

All I have to do is convert one of the replacement bonuses. But man is this tougher than even the ICT or ACF Regionals! At ACF Regionals or ICT I had someone to fall back on for certain question types, here I can't, and this is humbling to me, Alyssa starts thinking while she is waiting on the replacement bonus, as well as extra tossups.

Meanwhile, Violet, in her final tossup, despite having already lost, manages to power a Swiss poetry question against Imélie, who couldn't pin down the battle involved yet.

"Beresinalied"

"Fifteen"

Fast-forward to the end of the preliminary round and both Tulane players are in contention for medals. With Imélie still in the lead in the graduate division, she feels more confident that she can take the final game. One more game and I will have accomplished what no other participant had done before: winning both the undergraduate and graduate divisions of the WNCC, and clear the field, Imélie muses about what would winning the final game would mean to her.

Alyssa, however, must work harder because the final preliminary game feels stiffer to play. Especially since, if she loses this game, she could potentially be dragged into a situation that could be to her disadvantage since it appears that a tie for second place could happen. Having already lost one game, and the other player that could be in the tie for second, should Alyssa lose her game, is, well, winning her game, but Alyssa isn't aware of what's actually going on in other game rooms, only of the possibilities. In addition, she is playing the final game against the only hitherto undefeated player in the pool, and she can be tied for first instead. Better a tie for first than a tie for second, I guess, Alyssa starts thinking.

Yet every question turns into a buzzer race, and she knows she must buzz in as soon as the answer becomes clear to her. Like the penultimate question about the Eastern bloc which the opponent appears to be struggling on, and both players wait for the "For 10 points" to buzz in; both feel the need to avoid negging on it since they are tied. But Alyssa buzzes in and, once she falls off the difficulty cliff (that is, the post-FTP clue is significantly easier than all the pre-FTP clues)...

"Warsaw Pact"

"Ten"

At the same time, Imélie has one tossup question left to go, with a 45-point lead, so even though the opponent can still technically tie and subsequently win in overtime, she feels like she would need to neg this one to lose, and for that, the opponent would then need to answer it correctly. Even then, the opponent would need to convert all the bonuses just to tie (and winning in regulation would require the opponent to power-vulture the TU). But by then both players get nervous as their focus seem to be flickering.

Even though, normally, she wouldn't exhibit anything close to a full-body buzz, her body starts shaking and she makes rapid motions, which makes the opponent secretly hope that she will buzz in. But, as the clues go on, and the power mark is closing in on them, the opponent didn't take the bait. Even if I lose, I can still clear the field, but Violet would need to lose, too; the organizers made the standings clearly accessible on screens between the game rooms, Imélie had a passing thought before recentering on the following clue, which then causes her to buzz in for real.

"Active complex"

"Ten"

I did it! I am the only WNCC winner of any division who entered it without having had a pre-ICT FTPFTC ranking! As an undergraduate I came into the WNCC as the top-ranked female science undergraduate player, per the collegiate FTPFTC ranking, which was only released pre-ICT at the time, as opposed to four times per year, December, February, April and May¸ she keeps to herself before going into the bonus.

Alyssa, on the other hand, is facing a desperate attempt by her opponent to answer the same tossup, which ends up confusing the both of them, so much that, by the end of the tossup, both players need to collect themselves for a few seconds, and Alyssa buzzes in at the last second, with the answer active complex being given. Once the two Green Wave players meet outside the game rooms, with the standings in clear view...

"So my tournament is over. What about you?" Imélie asks her teammate.

"I am tied for first in my pool" Alyssa responds in kind.

"I guess, this break is well-deserved, and I should watch your games going forward. I'm confident you can do well"

"But I know that everyone competing in the medal round is as smart as I"

"That's OK, it is a national championship after all. But the scoreboard speaks for itself"

As Imélie's tournament ended, Alyssa's, on the other hand, continues about an hour later because of a lunch break so the four undergraduate players in medal contention can recharge their batteries for the final round. She starts by making the budget planning for the following year's quiz bowl season so that the faculty liaison can review it prior to submission. All I have to do is triple the travel and meal expenses incurred for the season that I actually charged to my employer, plus the costs of attending the WNCC, plus multiply by 5 the lodging costs; after all I skimped on ACF competitions, but next year I'll stick to Hyatt hotels. And triple the entry fees paid so we have an allowance for not only the ACF Nationals, but also entering Tulane A into Division I ICT and Tulane B in Division II, and plan for a combination of Alyssa, Bethany and Patricia entering the WNCC themselves, but I won't. But it's not like Sadie said, it's actually because a player is not eligible to take part in the same division in the future if they win a division, Imélie starts thinking about the Green Wave's quiz bowl budget for next year.

After all, her habit of charging travel, meals and lodging to her employer for the season allowed to make the best use of the limited funding her predecessor obtained the Green Wave for the year, for which she believed the best use was to pay entry fees to tournaments. But after the ICT, there was no cash left in the team's budget, even after Imélie's expense claim machinations and them hosting the ACF Regionals. After that, she estimated that she personally bore the cost of Tulane's quiz bowl season, either on her own out of her own pocket, or through expense claims.

Once the meal is over, she returns to the NYU academic building where the remaining games of the tournament will be held, and Alyssa's parents drove all the way from Boston to catch up to their daughter.

"My parents are here. They want to see me play" Alyssa comments about her parents.

"Now that I see that my daughter made the right choice in attending Tulane, we want to see her go all the way" her father adds, while her mother is about to add another comment.

"We even bought our own Tulane apparel when she decided to attend, it's the only time I could see my daughter all year" Alyssa's mother then talks about her outfit.

"Did you follow your daughter on For ten points, fix this community?" Imélie asks Alyssa's parents about FTPFTC.

"I knew my daughter was a very good quiz bowler, but not top female freshman-good" Alyssa's father then answers the coach's question.

"Please follow your daughter, her first playoff game is about to begin"

The three are seated in the first row of one of the game rooms with the larger seating capacity, and they watch a game of the highest caliber, with the understanding that advanced statistics are in use, and that their performance by subject is being tracked on top of the usual TUH, negs, powers and TUs.

And, by the end of the third medal round game, as has happened all too many times this season, Alyssa finds herself in the same situation where her nerves are on the verge of collapsing. That, even though all the nail-biting games previously played were still games where she could hope to win, and often the tournament as well. Games such as all of their games against Texas at ACF tournaments and Princeton at the ICT. Both players seemed to need to wait until the For 10 points cue to even come up with an answer.

"For ten points, name this 1486 book which was published as a guide for witch hunting during the German Renaissance"

"Canon Episcopi" Alyssa's opponent answers after buzzing in.

"Incorrect" Five seconds later, Alyssa fails to answer. "The answer was Malleus Mailficorum" This also means that this game will go into overtime, and here's the first overtime tossup:

The players get only a few words into the first overtime tossup that Alyssa's opponent already recognizes it as a repeat of a question asked in the preliminary round.

"Repeat!" Alyssa's opponent shouts upon realizing that the question is an exact repeat of a replacement question asked in a preliminary round game.

"Please wait while I'm getting replacement questions from the tournament director"

At this point of the tournament there aren't a whole lot of pristine questions left in the organizers' supplies, they apparently had enough leftover questions for only one tie-breaking game, and another game's worth of "emergency replacement questions". Fingers crossed, Alyssa thought, while she was bewildered by how hard this question was compared to past literature questions she answered in this tournament. Then again, WNCC organizers tended to put the hardest questions in the medal round. When the set of additional questions arrive, the next question makes both people squirm. Plus, it isn't even a literature tossup.

Everyone is on the edge of their seats since it's a de facto gold medal game. If Alyssa wins, then Tulane will have achieved what no other school did before at the WNCC: sweep both golds. But even if she does not win gold, I'm still proud of her, Imélie thinks about the implications of this game's result, of this tossup and, two clues in, neither player seem able to buzz in, even though both players are trembling as the moderator keeps reading the question. Yet, her opponent's nervousness causes her to buzz accidentally, and she feels compelled to provide an answer that she normally had no business answering.

"Thalidomide?"

"Neg five. The answer was methadone, and that's the game"

Once the game ends, the buzzers are returned to their owners, and the game rooms are cleaned up. The awards ceremony begins soon thereafter, starting with the medalists from the undergraduate division. When Alyssa steps forward...

"And the gold medalist of the undergraduate division of the 2035 Women's National Collegiate Championship, from Tulane University, Alyssa Hickman!" the tournament director announces the gold medalist.

After the undergraduate medalists receive their medals, the graduate medalists receive theirs, Violet winning the silver medal, with the local supporters of NYU cheering her on stage when she steps forward, and Imélie, the gold.

"Congratulations, Tulane University on the Green Wave's exemplary performance!" the tournament director announces to the crowd. "On behalf of For ten points, fix this community, I thank the New York University Violets for hosting this year's tournament, and I also thank the players for supplying an entire day of quiz bowl gameplay of the highest caliber, as well as the questions that made this tournament happen. I also thank the edition team"