Simply put, Duke doesn’t play that much by recent design. Hey, there’s only seven of us who ever went to a tournament, and three others beyond that. Even with that small number, we still managed to go to three tournaments and compile a nice 27-16 mark. Here’s the rundown.

Our first, and we figured only, experience on the Quiz Bowl scene came when four of us traveled on up to Philadelphia, PA, for Penn Bowl VIII. We came in thinking .500 at best. A quick look at our bracket confirmed our suspicions. Still, tied for fifth was impressive, and perhaps would be even more so if it weren’t for the fact that four other teams could claim that. Yes, we’re proud to say we were in the Star of Death at Penn Bowl. Here’s the rundown.

Then, Bryce got this brilliant idea: Hey, Sectionals are only 3 hours away. Let’s send a team there! So we rounded up our cadre of five and headed to Greenville, SC, for the NAQT Southeast Sectionals, hosted by Furman. Before the tournament, we figured a top four was somewhat reasonable; after it, we wondered what happened. Traditional powers Georgia Tech, South Carolina, and Kentucky all fell through a string of upsets. Suddenly, who was left as champs? Little old us! Thanks to Bryce’s All-Star performance, the team captured gold. Maybe David will allow the team to have it one of these days.

* - Technically, North Carolina wasn’t there. So, Andy, Navin, and David, as Duke, defeated Bryce, as North Carolina (who was actually trying to win). The game goes as a forfeit win and individual stats do not count.

** - Finals. The rules were that the finals would be two out of three with the game in the round-robin being Game One. Naturally, our only loss had to come to the second place team. Oh well, we just had to beat them twice, too.

Well, the team knew they just had to follow up on that performance by showing at Nationals. Problem: Few people could cough up the cash for the plane fare. Hey, guys, come to somewhere closer next year! Oh well. Bryce and Navin couldn’t go (due to personal obligations) and no one could replace them (due to previous commitments) so the remaining three went to defend Duke’s honor. As the youngest team in the field, and short-handed to boot, the team finished a decent 38^th. It shows promise for next year.

TOTALS:

Record: 27-16

Winning Pct.: .628

Points for (avg.): 165.0

Points against (avg.): 158.6

With teams we faced multiple times, we were 1-2 vs. Arkansas, 2-1 vs. Berry, 2-0 vs. Carnegie Mellon, 1-1 vs. Oxford-Oriel, 1-1 vs. Vanderbilt, and 0-2 vs. Virginia Tech A. But we were 1-0 vs. community colleges.

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Go to hell Carolina!