Welcome back everyone! School is starting, and we’re going to be getting started soon! The first event of the year is the Rookie Jamboree at Plymouth on October 7th. The following week, October 14th will be our Division II tournament at John Stark. Make sure to let Jay at Plymouth know if you’re coming as soon as possible!
Take a moment to review the changes we made last spring, which you can find an overview of here.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Here is the finalized Varsity-J/V schedule for next year. We may be looking for a spring host for a Rookie Jamboree, and a date, but here is the final schedule for the regular season. Thanks to all the hosts, and look forward to seeing you next year!

October 7th: Rookie tournament (host: Plymouth)
October 14th: Division II tournament (host: John Stark)
October 28th: GHOST @ Hanover
November 12th: Super Sunday GSC
November 18th: Division I tournament (host: Lisbon)
December 9th: Division III tournament (host: Merrimack)
January: Granite State Challenge (no quiz bowl)
February 3rd: Division IV tournament (host: PCA)
February 10th: Snow date for Div IV
March 17th: At-Large tournament (host: Kingswood)
March 31st: Snow date for at-large
April 8th: State tournament

Several of us gathered for a Coaches Council Meeting on Thursday, April 20, to discuss the state of the league, and to consider making some changes.

To summarize, we decided that the current 5 division structure was not working. We consolidated to 4 divisions, and realigned the existing schools to try and spread out the active schools more evenly. We still plan on holding 5 tournaments this year, with one tournament serving as an “at-large” tournament. We also made some provisions for changes in the J/V structure.

We spent some time talking about methods to expand the league within New Hampshire. These notes are in the minutes as well. If anyone knows someone at a school that currently does not have a team, that would like to, please put them in touch with us, as we will try and provide support to help them get started.

Finally, we sketched out a schedule for next season. We will be looking for hosts for some of these tournaments. Here is the schedule as we laid it out. We did our best to try and avoid major conflicts like SATs and most music events. Please look at the proposed schedule below and let us know if you’re interested in hosting a regional. We’re particularly interested in hosts for the new Division I and Division II.

We look forward to seeing you all next fall, and if you have any questions regarding the new alignment, let us know!

Proposed Schedule

September 30th: Rookie tournament (host: Plymouth)

October 14th: Division  tournament (host: ?) * THIS COULD BE EITHER DIV 1 OR II

October 28th: GHOST

November 12th: Super Sunday GSC

November 18th: Division  tournament (host: ?) * THIS COULD BE EITHER DIV 1 OR II

December 9th: Division 3 tournament (host: Merrimack)

January: Granite State Challenge (no quiz bowl)

February 3rd: Division 4 tournament (host: PCA)

February 10th: Snow date

March 17th: At-Large tournament (host: Kingswood?)

March 31st: Snow date

April 8th: State tournament     

We would like to hold a Coaches Council meeting on Thursday, April 20th, at 4:00pm. The meeting will be held at the Hooksett Public Library, 31 Mount Saint Mary’s Way, Hooksett, NH  03106.

A proposed agenda will follow, along with additional information to review, but the meeting will have several goals. We may want to schedule an additional meeting to continue discussions if necessary.

The main goals will be to 1) discuss current divisional structure, and consider any realignment proposals, 2) to discuss and perhaps formalize structure for “B” or “J/V” team tournaments within the current structures,  3) to brainstorm ways to promote the league and encourage participation and 4) to set the competition schedule for next year.

This may be more than we can chew through in one meeting, (Particularly if all schools haven’t published their 2017-18 calendars yet!) but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

We hope to see you all there!

Congrats to Plymouth Regional High School for their victory today at the state tournament, completing an undefeated season! Very impressive!

Here are the standings for the day:

Plymouth 7-0
BG 5-2
Hanover 4-3
PCA 4-3
Merrimack 3-4
Salem 3-4
Fall Mountain 2-5
Lisbon 0-7

Here are the results that are available from today’s regional. If anyone knows how PCA or Hanover did, let us know so I can update the full results:

Plymouth 9-0 (Goes undefeated in the regular season and wins the region)
BG 8-1
Salem 5-4
Merrimack 4-5
Kingswood 4-5
Fall Mountain 4-5
Stevens 3-6
Pinkerton 1-8

Hello all! A reminder to let John Struble at Kingswood if you are planning on attending the Lakes Region Tournament this weekend. Also, Plymouth High has set a date for our spring J/V tournament. It will be April 8th. So prep those newbies and I hope we’ll see you there!

On a day that reminds us that winter has not yet departed New Hampshire, 13* schools gathered at PCA in Dover to compete in the Hunter Farnham Seacoast Regional.

PCA took the regional win, and will compete at the State Tournament in April! Congrats, and thank you for hosting!  They also won the B Team bracket with a 3-way tie, and took home two large bags of candy!

Here’s how the day went down in the A bracket:

Plymouth 10-0 (Has yet to lose a match this year!)

Hanover 8-2

PCA 7-3

Bishop Guertin 6-4

Merrimack 6-4

Pinkerton 6-4

Salem 5-5

Fall Mountain 3-7

Kingswood 3-7

Oyster River 3-7

Spaulding 0-10

*Coe-Brown elected to play only in the B team bracket, PCA B played in the A Team bracket to round out to 12.

And here are the updated at-large standings for the State Tournament:

39 – Plymouth

24 – Salem

24 – Merrimack

17 – Pinkerton

15 – Fall Mountain

12 – Kingswood

8 – Stevens

6 – Hollis Brookline

6 – Oyster River

3 – Coe-Brown

2 – John Stark

The next regional will be the Lakes Region at Kingswood, on March 25th.

An important message from Donna Capern:

Portsmouth Christian Academy looks forward to welcoming you to the Hunter Farnham Seacoast Regional Quiz Bowl Tournament on Saturday, March 4, 10am!

IMPORTANT:
This  tournament falls on the last Saturday of NH winter break, could you please try extra hard to let me know before your break whether you are coming and how many teams you are bringing …otherwise we will be flying blind as far as preparations.

We also need to know if you can bring lockout systems, how many, whether you are available to read, and could you send me your cell numbers as well.  Please email me or see the email that went out to the list for my cell phone number.

Many thanks we all look forward to hearing from you!

Donna Capern, Ray Gamble and Eric Savage
PCA Quiz Club

Despite the weather, 10 teams arrived at Hanover today to compete in the Western Regional. There were also 6 teams that competed in a J/V bracket as well! The here’s how the A Bracket shook out:

Plymouth 9-0
Hanover 7-2
Salem 5-4
Pinkerton 5-4
Bishop Guertin 5-4
Fall Mountain 5-4
Merrimack 4-5
John Stark 2-7
Kingswood 2-7
Stevens 1-9

And here are the updated at-large standings for the State Tournament: