Good evening everyone!

Well, the weather we were worried about went south of us, and we ended up having a beautiful day to drive up north and spend a day in the mountains! Thanks to Carlene and her crew for rolling out the welcome wagon for us for the first time in SIX YEARS. It was great to see her again!

This was our final regular season tournament, and there was still lots to be decided aside from our final AQ slot for the state tournament. Two of the three at-large spots were up for grabs at the start of the day, so we would get some clarity today. 

Merrimack had a good day, going 9-1 (and they split their varsity team for me to make the grid even at 10, MerriJack, just Captain Jack from Merrimack, went 6-4 all by himself!) But they already had an AQ for the State Finals, so the bid went to Plymouth at 8-2 (tied with Hanover, also already AQ’d). On the J/V side, Merrimack J/V couldn’t be caught for best J/V of the year, but added to their total with 8 more wins, finishing the year at 35 overall.

The at-large race came down to Trinity, which started the day with 14, and the first slot essentially locked up, Salem, which had 5 to open the day, Fall Mountain with 3, and John Stark with 2. Trinity tacked on three wins, bringing them to 17, and made things official. Fall Mtn. gave a good performance with 7, and finished the season with 10 wins, good for the second at large spot, and then Salem picked up three, which was just good enough for them to finish the season with 8, and outpace John Stark, which had four wins today, and finished out the year with 6 overall, just on the outside looking in. 

Here are all the final results:

State finals are still TBA, because I’m playing phone/email tag with the folks in Concord. I will be following up this week to try and nail that down, so qualified teams, please stay tuned!

I am also hoping to have a middle school/ninth grade tournament in May, with John Stark as a potential host, but we need to nail down some dates, so stay tuned on that.

For everyone else, it was a great season. I look forward to next year with all y’all. I’ve got some new ideas I want to kick around, perhaps exploring some new options for tournaments, checking on a new question provider, and on the backside, I’m contemplating a major update to our website that has the potential to make my life much easier. (That’s a summer project!) 

Talk to you all soon! 

Good morning!

Despite the additional confusion by the competing event, we had a successful tournament on Saturday. I want to thank all of you who came down to visit with us! We had a great time having you.

Our next and FINAL regular season tournament of the year will be at Lisbon on March 11th, 2023. I will probably be sending registration info for that tournament before the end of February because the Winter Break will disrupt folks’ schedules, and I want everyone to have plenty of notice. Looking forward to visiting up North for the first time in a long time!

On to the results! St. Thomas had an excellent morning, going 8-2 overall and winning the tournament outright, and claiming the fourth slot at the State Tourney. Trinity J/V had a strong showing as well, taking an 8-2 record in the J/V bracket. Congrats to all. Full results are here:

And the current overall standings:

A wide open race for at-large slots shaping up going into our final tournament of the year. 

I will be nailing down a date for the state finals very soon, so stay tuned. Also hoping to hold a j/v-middle school exhibition tournament some time after the state tourney, so keep that in mind as well. If you are interested in hosting for the 2023-2024 season, start thinking now! I want to try and nail down those dates and locations before we all go home in June!

Thanks everyone!

Good evening all!

It was an incredible day on Saturday! Weather aside, and those folks who found themselves buried, I am sorry you were unable to make it, it was so great to see so many new faces at Quiz Bowl. We had 18 teams total, and that number would have been even higher if it hadn’t been for the storm. Easily our largest post-pandemic turnout…quiz bowl is alive and thriving in NH again. 

The folks at Merrimack always put on a great show, and they off course did not disappoint! There were snacks and so many Merrimack alumni back to quizmaster for us, it was great, all the new coaches could spend the day with their teams instead of having to read.

So, on to the important stuff. Merrimack’s varsity team had their way with everyone on Saturday, but since they’re already in the state tournament, we jumped down to the next level. St. Thomas and Nashua South, both newcomers (St. Thomas for the first time ever, I think (at least since I’ve been involved), and South has been in the past but not recently) finished at 8-2. But South held the tiebreaker over St. Thomas, and so punched their ticket to the state finals, congrats South!  On the J/V side, Merrimack E (the Merrimack J/V teams were oddly designated, and that’s on me and some of my organizational choices in the run up to the tournament, sorry) went 10-0, so congrats to them!

Here are the full results: 

and the standings:

So, our next tournament will be at the end of January/early February. I’m actually thinking that if GSC gets their tapings in with no weather delays, we might try for the last weekend in January, but we’ll check back in on that after the new year.

I’ve been asked about an online tournament, perhaps as well. We could conceivably do both, before heading off to Libson in March. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, happy holidays and happy New Year everyone! It’s been a great 2022, and hopefully quiz bowl continues growing into 2023! 

Good afternoon all!

On Saturday, we gathered to usher in a new year of Quiz Bowl for New Hampshire! It was a beautiful, if long, drive out to Fall Mountain, and the hospitality was amazing. Thank you to Nick and his crew for being such gracious hosts!

Six schools participated, with 8 teams overall. Merrimack went 9-1 on the day, and took the first qualifying spot for the State Tournament in April. Merrimack J/V had a strong day as well, going 5-5 against mostly varsity opponents. 

Here are the rest of the scores: 

And the standings:

Stay tuned for announcements about GHOST and an October tournament soon. We should have most of the rest of the year’s schedule (beyond October) very soon, so watch for that (still looking for someone to host in February, in case anyone is interested!) 

Have a great day!

Good morning everyone!

Eight teams gathered on Sunday afternoon at Trinity High School to complete the 2021-2022 NHBQL Season. Despite the warmth and humidity, we made it through!

I want to thank everyone for helping to make this season a success, and I hope we’ll see you all again next year! Stay tuned for info regarding scheduling and hosting for next season, coaches! We need to get on that soon!

Anyway, it was quite a remarkable day, and the tournament and the season came down to a single match in the sixth round of play, where Merrimack and Hanover went to a tiebreak. Merrimack came away with the win, and went on to win their final match of the day for a 7-0 record, and unseated the 4 year defending champions Hanover. Congratulations to Sara and her crew!

Here’s how the rest broke down. And I gotta say, from a mathematical symmetry standpoint, these are interesting results. 

It’s been a great season, and again, thank you all for helping out, either by hosting, or just being there for your team. It’s been a rough couple of years for Quiz Bowl, just like all extracurriculars, but hopefully things are looking up! Have a good summer everyone! 

Good evening everyone!

Yesterday we had a great day at Oyster River for our final regular season tournament! Thanks to John and his crew for hosting us! It had been a while since we’ve been to that area of the state, and it was nice drive. Spring is almost upon us!

Our last tournament produced some unintentional drama, which I will elaborate on in a moment, but first, Fall Mt. went 9-1 and grabbed the last AQ slot for the state tournament! Our field is set for the finals! Joining the five AQ teams will be at-large qualifiers Pinkerton, Kingswood, and Trinity! I will be sending out an email about the State Finals to those coaches involved tomorrow AM!

The drama was on the J/V side, and I made a small mistake here. Plymouth J/V took the crown for the day at 7-3, which gave them 27 wins on the season. On Saturday, I announced they had won the J/V team of the Year crown outright by 1 over Merrimack (26) But I had forgotten that one of Merrimack’s J/V teams was playing up in the Varsity Bracket (to even the numbers, since we had 9 schools), and they had one more win than the Merrimack B team in the J/V grid, so Plymouth and Merrimack actually TIED at 27 wins. It’s too late now to go back and play a tiebreak, so I hereby declare that the teams will share the crown, and each will receive a trophy this year. Congrats to both teams!

Anyway, here are the full results and the final regular season standings:

It’s been a good year to get back to in person quiz bowl! I hope we will have even more teams next fall. We are looking to do an online exhibition sometime in May on an afternoon, so stay tuned on that. And stay tuned for more info on State Finals!

Good morning and Happy Monday!

It was a great day Saturday at John Stark! Thanks very much to them for hosting us! We look forward to heading back there soon.

Our last regular season qualifier will be held on April 16th, at Oyster River High School, so you can start planning. State finals will follow in the first full weekend of May (7 or 8), exact date and location TBA. Stay tuned!

So on to the results. Because we had uneven numbers all around on Saturday, we played all in one bracket to make life easier on the scheduling. Plymouth and Pinkerton both finished with 8-2 records, but Plymouth won their head to head matchup, giving them the tournament win this weekend. Congrats to Plymouth!

On the j/v side, the Plymouth j/v team went 5-5, notching Plymouth’s 2nd win of the day. 

Here’s the rest of the scores;

And here are the current standings:

Look forward to seeing you all at Oyster River!

Good morning everyone and Happy Monday!

On Saturday, we gathered in Salem for our third tournament of the year. I hope everyone had a good time! I know the timing was rough for folks who were on vaca this week, but we needed to squeeze it in. Our next date will be March 26th, so mark your calendars. Host is still in negotiations, but we’re looking at possibly heading to John Stark. I’ll keep you posted.

On to the results! Merrimack had a hot hand coming in, and took it to a 9-1 record to claim the third AQ slot for the state finals. Plymouth J/V went 7-3 on the day to take J/V honors for the tournament, though special shout out to Merrimack J/V, which played up in the varsity bracket to help even things out, and went 6-4, including handing their own varsity team their only loss!

Here’s the rest of the stats:

And the current standings:

Have a great Feb Break, and see you in March!

Hi everyone!

It was a rainy day in Merrimack, and slippery in some places I gather. We were sorry to have missed the folks from John Stark, but we 110% approve of being safe! We hope that the weather will be better in February….(Yeah, I know how that sounds…)

In any case, 5 varsity and 3 j/v teams gathered at MHS for our tournament and a good time was had by all. Sara and her folks did a fabulous job getting things set, and they even had a full complement of readers, so nobody had to get drafted in to read! Many, many thanks! 

We welcomed Trinity for the first time in quite some time to NHQBL, and we hope they will join us for many tournaments to come! 

Onto the results! It was a very good day for Salem, as the team rolled up 10 wins to take the bid to the state tournament without dropping a match! (I’m super proud of them). On the J/V side, Merrimack j/v ran up a 6-4 record. Here are the rest of the results:

And the standings:

I hope everyone has a great holiday and a happy new year! We are on hiatus until after GSC finishes taping in January, but I will be emailing soon to try and set the remainder of our schedule for the season, so watch your email boxes! 

See you in 2022! (hey, that rhymes!) 

Hello everyone!

Today was a significant milestone for us! Today we held our first in-person tournament since March 2020, when we gathered at Kingswood. I remember standing there, talking with Murph and several others about whether or not we would need to alter our schedule (we had another tournament coming up at the end of the month), and all of us kind of saying…”well…maybe? But probably not.” How wrong we were.

Anyway, it was a beautiful drive to Plymouth. (Not the seacoast….sorry. You had to be there…) And it was great to see so many of you in person! We had six varsity teams, and four J/V teams. Want to give a special shoutout to Michele from John Stark for restarting that program! It was great to have them!

Hanover won the day for varsity, going 9-1, and taking home the first plaque of the year! Congrats to Murph and the gang! Merrimack J/V also went 9-1, getting the J/V race off to a good start. Full results below:

In terms of upcoming events, GHOST is next weekend at Hanover! Contact Murph directly if you plan to attend. Sara and I won’t be there, we have kid commitments of our own for Halloween, but I hope everyone has a blast. Our next qualifier is December 11th at Merrimack, and I’ll sent out info closer to the date. Good luck if you’re taking the GSC qualifying test in November!