Governor's Cup

Yesterday was the grueling marathon of an event that is elementary Governor's Cup (Uh, upon re-reading, I've decided that might be the ugliest sentence I've ever written). Natalie and I arrived at a local elementary school (though not that local. Redistricting moved us into a weirdo district with several schools that are miles away from us) at 7:45 AM, and the whole thing wasn't over until about 3:30 PM. Natalie competed in one written test, Language Arts, and she was on the Quick Recall Team.

The Quick Recall matches were pretty exciting. There were five teams in the double elimination tournament, and the top 2 went on to regionals. Natalie's school got a bye in the first round, so they took on a winning school in the second round. Nat's team easily won the match, but there was some controversy as the opposing team's captain had a broken buzzer button and no one realized it until just before the end of the first half. The Governor's Cup rules are clear that in such an event the score stands as it was scored, but there was plenty of grumbling from the other team that the match would have turned out differently if the buzzer had worked.

In the third round Natalie's school played a local private school that has always been a nemesis, and after falling far behind early, Nat's team fought valiantly back, pulling to within one point, but finally losing by two. This sent her school to the loser's bracket, where it had to face the team that they had "cheated" in the previous round. This time Natalie's school soundly beat them with all buzzers working, which made everyone, I think, perversely satisfied.

The victory meant that Natalie's school had to play its nemesis AGAIN, and this time, since her team had previously lost, it would have to win twice to claim the championship. And that's exactly what happened. In the first rematch her team won fairly easily, and in the rubber game of the series the match wasn't decided until the last four questions. It was an exciting time, but for the third year in a row her school won the Quick Recall Match (It was also the third year in a row that the team won the overall trophy!).

After the Quick Recall tournament ended the day was almost over. All that was left was the presentation of awards. Natalie received medals both for the team victory in Quick Recall and for her earlier Language Arts test: she scored a 5th place medal, which isn't bad for a first timer. She goes on now to compete in the regional competition in both Quick Recall with her team and in Language Arts as an individual.

Below is a video of Natalie receiving her Language Arts ribbon. It was recorded on my cell phone, which isn't designed primarily as a video capture device, so the video and audio quality is lacking a bit, but you'll get the idea.