Upon arriving in New Orleans, before going to the hotel rooms, Warren has the team assembled for one more speech with the team regarding the implications of the state championship for the postseason.
"If we finish in the top fifteen percent here, we're going to the nationals. Given the size of the field, this means we must finish in the top three to do so. We qualified for this by virtue of finishing fifth out of a field of twenty-four at Dutchtown, and we did so with a lesser roster. With Florence and Imélie we might have a chance; they seem poised to play better than the player we lost. Also, Imélie, you will play against teams we know are weak in math and science, while you, Florence, will play against the strong teams in history and social studies"
Now I understand what that guy meant when he said I could be less bitter about our debate season by playing quiz bowl. Maybe he was a friend of any of the male quiz bowl players we had this season, Florence reflects on last week's practice debate.
But being clueless about how quiz bowl dress codes differed from debate tournament dress codes, and she dressed according to the latter, people assumed she was the team chaperone, rather than a player because none of the players on any team at the tournament from schools with a debate team, of which there are five (only one school doing both debate and quiz bowl didn't qualify to quiz bowl-State, and it was the "neighboring parish", which was widely considered one of the worst debate teams entered into debate-State) was on their respective schools' debate teams, outside of herself. Not even Lafayette, which, in Flo's mind, was more focused on speech, especially declamation.
"The preliminary round will be held in two pools, the top three teams in each pool advance to the playoffs" the tournament director announced.
"We only need to make it to the top three. For the playoffs we need our best gameplay. We shall see how good our rookies really are in the preliminary round" Warren makes his wishes to his team.
Finally, some fresh faces! In debate tournaments I always met a certain mold of people, and more often than not, a subset always comes back and attend the same tournaments. Here in quiz bowl, Imélie and I are both new faces to everyone. And several of them are not used to seeing more than one girl on a quiz bowl team, Florence thinks, while debate teams have more girls, on average, than quiz bowl teams apparently. And also bewildered by just how masculine quiz bowl is.
And the substitution game begins in earnest, especially when someone seems to be underperforming. In their preliminary group, the Venomous Agendas face Caddo Magnet as well as Bâton-Rouge Magnet against which Florence plays both games. She played her best two preliminary games against these opponents since she essentially treated these as she would have either the debate district qualifier or debate-State.
At the end of the preliminary round, the Venomous Agendas finish second in the pool, with no one having played all tossups. But she can't help but think of what the next two weeks mean to her and... For my entire high school life up to this point, I was known for debating and arts, but now all we have to do is finish in the top half of the playoff pool, and we go to the HSNCT. Quiz bowl postseason feels much more realistic than the debate Nationals at this point, since, given the state of debate in Louisiana, just making it to Nationals essentially requires winning a state championship. We might be able to defeat Bâton-Rouge Magnet or Caddo Magnet on a good day, in quiz bowl or in debates, but it's clear by now that I can only do so much in debates.
"The coach made such a big deal of getting me to play here, and now that I'm here, I have..." Imélie laments in front of Florence.
"The lowest playtime. I know you're eager to prove yourself as a quiz bowler, and so am I, but for a different reason. We both played well, but this game is even faster than a crossfire..." Florence laments in turn.
"Crossfire?" an opposing team chaperone questioned Florence, surprised to even hear the word crossfire used to refer to quiz bowl game pacing. "How do you live your transition from debating to quiz bowl?"
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"I might be a rookie in quiz bowl, but while, in all debate formats, you must think on your feet, answering questions is what differs most to me. For years I was used to respond to an argument, and I must pick my points with care; doing so takes much longer than a typical quiz bowl answer" other players from both Bâton-Rouge and Caddo Magnets listen in, with a few more players unfamiliar with debating also listening, some of which do so because of her gender. "Crossfires, as you can imagine, involve asking and answering several questions quickly"
"What kind of student would be better served playing quiz bowl, other than someone who might not be very adept at public speaking?" the chaperone asks her.
"Someone who might not necessarily be willing to be an expert on one specific topic, or someone who might not be the most comfortable writing. This is especially true of policy debating, in which you are expected to do extensive research so that you can build a case or a counter-case and then proceed to debate one topic for an entire season. In any other format, your topic debates change every two months or so, I was able to transition more smoothly to quiz bowl than if I was a policy debater because the necessary research didn't tie me down to a narrow area. And it made me willing to buzz in; I would be lying if I told you debating isn't stressful. If, on the other hand, you feel more inclined to understand a topic in more depth, because, while quiz bowl may be about knowledge, you can still be a decent player even if you don't understand the underlying concepts very well, provided you know things. In debate, however, if you don't understand the underlying concepts, it will make the response to arguments harder. Also, if you can think more creatively, maybe debate is a better fit for you than quiz bowl" Florence explains how she feels about both activities.
"Do you feel like it's easier to from debate to quiz bowl or from quiz bowl to debate?" a player asks her.
"All things considered, I'd say that it's easier to go from debate to quiz bowl than the reverse, especially if you used to do either public forum or extemporaneous debate, which are the fastest-paced formats of debate, and Congressional as well since you cover a wider range of topics"
"What about speech vs quiz bowl then?" the same player asks her.
"If you just do speech, which is often paired with debate as for teams, the main benefits that translate to quiz bowl are confidence on the buzzer and research ability, but you won't necessarily develop thinking speed"
"Interesting..." that player sighs.
The playoff rounds begin and... wow. The so-called Venomous Agendas' "Debate Girl" somehow seems to do better in higher-pressure games, and, at the end of these five games...
"At the end of the playoff round, since preliminary results don't carry over, we have a tie. As a result, one last game is going to be played and the winner will win the state title!" the tournament director announces to the attendees.
"This means we are going to the HSNCT!" Warren announces to the team. "Oh and Florence, at the HSNCT, please, don't dress for it as you would a debate tournament"
The title game against Jesuit is a very closely-fought game, where both teams fight tooth-and-nail, but with Imélie benched because Warren didn't want to have too much of one thing in active gameplay. The game is tied, 310-310, going into the fourth overtime question, for which the tournament director supplied extra questions.
"We are now entering sudden death. Tossup number twenty-four: This city..." the TD reads the question.
The question then goes on to describe events that happened in the city in question, as well as landmarks in it. Everyone in the room was high-strung and everyone feels the pressure mounting, while William, thinking he could answer after two clues, buzzes in...
"Xi'an" William answers, his buzzer shaking in his hand.
"Neg five. The correct answer was Luoyang. Our new state champions, the Jesuit Blue Jays!"
While we might not have won the quiz bowl state championship, at least there is a post-season for me to play in. And... Imélie was right: she barely heard two-thirds of the tossups, even the guy that had no buzzing consistency heard more, albeit less than half a game more. His substitutions had very little logic in it. I pulled my weight, and I'm surprised as to how well I performed for a first quiz bowl tournament! Now, for the next two weeks, this means more research on the public forum topic as played at district qualifiers and debate-State, and more practices. Which have exactly the same fields. As captain of the debate team, I must see this season through, Nationals or not, Florence thought while receiving an old history book, and, from the chaperone of the Bâton-Rouge Magnet Bulldogs, who listened to her talking about her transition from debate to quiz bowl, a copy of War and Speech.
These two weeks in question had the Venomous Agendas break in both tournaments, led by Florence in public forum, but ultimately losing both tournaments in the semi-finals, crushing the VAs' hopes for a trifecta, that is, qualifying for national tournaments in all 3 of the academic extracurriculars. Oh well, I can always debate for the Rouge et Or in college, even though I know a few of them will be pre-law students.