BUENA VISTA, Virginia — The Southern Virginia University Quiz Bowl team competed in the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) East Sectional Championship Tournament at
the University of Maryland-College Park on Saturday, February 11, 2006. The Knights surprised competitors from large, prestigious schools by finishing 7-6 and taking eighth place out of nineteen teams.
NAQT is one of the three main national governing bodies that sanction quiz bowl tournaments across the United States. Quiz bowl is a game in which two teams of four sit at buzzers as a moderator asks questions from a variety of academic disciplines. The team that buzzes in first with the correct answer gets ten points for that question and a shot at up to thirty additional
points through a set of bonus questions.
Southern Virginia played against some of the top universities in the country, each of which had a student body many times the size of SVU. The Knights claimed victories over Virginia Tech, George Washington, Virginia, Case Western Reserve, Miami, North Carolina — Chapel Hill, and, most impressively, eventual tournament champions Johns Hopkins University.
The most exciting match of the day was undoubtedly the champions’ bracket showdown between SVU and Johns Hopkins. The game was close throughout, with both teams performing at their best. SVU had a narrow lead going into the last tossup question. Johns Hopkins buzzed in first with the correct answer and went up by five points, and the SVU team had to await a judge’s ruling on their answer to a previous question before knowing if they had won. Upon further review, Southern Virginia was given credit for the answer and eked out a five-point victory.
The Knights’ team consists of students Erik Dryden (team captain), John Neuerburg, Britt Jones, and Joe Deaver, and is advised by SVU History Professor Fran MacDonnell. Southern Virginia University Quiz Bowl next competes February 24-25, 2006, at the College Bowl Regional Championship Tournament at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
College Bowl, a continuation of the popular radio and television game show of the 1950’s and 60’s, is the best known and oldest of the three main quiz bowl sanctioning bodies. SVU’s team looks forward to astounding the opposition in Greenville next week.
