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Week 1 Recap:  Both Familiar Faces and New Names Atop Standings

The general consensus among the LVQBA staff members after the first week of play is that these games just feel different this time around.  Looking at the final scores across the league, it's easy to see why.  Through one week of play in the 2019 season, the league has already seen more close games than the last two seasons combined.  Parity has arrived (especially in the middle of the standings), and it promises to produce some exciting matches throughout the year.

HS Game of the Week--Chargers Top Patriots in Battle of Last Year's Finalists

One team returned all of its starters from last year, the other team began its season with the torch passed to a new generation.  The result, a Clark 790-30 victory, was not much of a surprise because the Chargers have done that to pretty much everyone in their path for the last three years.  Instead, this match acted as a perfect microcosm for the current narrative of the league.  This year, there are teams with players putting the cap on spectacular careers and there are teams with new players standing on the shoulders of those that came before them.  For Clark, it was business as usual with an especially impressive 540 points scored on bonuses.  For Liberty A, small victories came in the form of new players like Jo Hartl giving glimpses of the future by finding ways to get on the scoreboard against an excellent team.  The Chargers finished the day in first place at 4-0, 340 points per game ahead of second place.  The Patriots finished at 2-2.

MS Game of the Week--Eastgate A Jumps Out Early and Stays Ahead of Red Rock

They may be new to pyramidal quiz bowl this year, but the Coral Academy of Science Eastgate Falcons looked like they had been playing for years as they defeated an experienced Red Rock squad, 340-160.  Theo Perze established himself as one of the promising talents in the league with an 0-8-0 line for 80 points.  Red Rock was led in defeat with a balanced effort from Jed Paley (0-4-0) and Logan Timmons (0-4-0).  The Falcons finished at 3-0 on the day, currently in 2nd place on statistical tiebreakers.  The Dragons finished at 1-2.

Buzzworthy Players of the Day

--The Meadows are currently the team to beat in the Middle School Division.  Breakout star and captain Ben Vinocur leads all scorers at 4.2 PPTH and 100.91 PPG.  The Mustangs face off in a highly-anticipated Week 2 matchup against Eastgate A.

--Matt Falker is on a mission to make sure that Coral Academy's other campus, Sandy Ridge, doesn't stay in the shadows.  He sits at 86 PPG and a league-high 6 powers after three rounds of play.

--Eshaan Vakil began his senior season for Clark with 13 powers on 84 tossups heard.  He leads the league in scoring after three rounds of play.


--Josh Cruzado, also beginning his senior season, has started off 2019 with a bang for Red Rock.  His highlight of the day was a 1-11-0 line for 125 points against Faith Lutheran A.  It is Cruzado's career-best for a single game.

--Newcomer Aidan Bauer from Rancho is one to watch this season.  He helped lead the expansion Rams to a 3-1 record on the back of his 1-28-4 line for the day.  He sits at 3rd overall in the individual standings.

League Notes for the Day

White-Knucklers All Around
10 matches ended with margins of either 1 or 2 cycles.  3 HS matches went down to the last tossup.  Lone Mountain A and Sandy Ridge outdid everyone, though, as they finished in a tie at 225.  It is the third tie in LVQBA history, the second time that the tie has occurred in Week 1.  (Hey, if the NFL can do it, why not us?)

Balance, Balance, Balance
A new trend of balance is the theme of the young season so far.  In the High School division, 5 teams have at least 2 players in the top-20 of the individual standings.  In the Middle School division, 6 teams have at least 2 players in the top-20.  Early results indicates an apparent shift in strategy this year with more teams becoming less reliant on one player to score tossups and more reliant on specialization.

Big-Time MS Matchup in Week 2
Keep an eye on the game between Eastgate A and The Meadows in Round 6 on 10/26.  Both teams sit at 3-0 atop the Middle School division.

Building for the Future
Faith Lutheran became the second school in league history to field both a high school and middle school squad at the same time.  The Crusaders had a strong day in both leagues with their A team and B team both finishing at 3-1, and their middle school team finishing at 1-1.  Their scoring is currently the most balanced of any school in the league.

Building for the Future, Part 2
Sierra Vista finds themselves in a spot this season to build talent for the future.  The Mountain Lions sport their largest roster since joining the league and will rely on captain Emma Jurvelin to provide leadership for their new players.  It will likely not be long before the Lions return to the top of the league standings.

Next Scheduled Games:  10/26 at Liberty High School

Welcome to the 2019-20 LVQBA Season!

Greetings, Quiz Bowl fans, from wherever you call home!  All of us at the LVQBA are very excited to get the season going as we begin our 2-week countdown to the first matches of the year.  Today marks the full unveiling of our High School and Middle School Leagues for the 2019-2020 season.

Take a moment to check out all of the teams and read some of the comments submitted by our coaches about their hopes and expectations for their teams.  We have many new schools joining us this year (especially at the middle school level).  Please give them a warm welcome to the Quiz Bowl community by showing them the same love you've given us since we started three years ago!  (And give them a follow on social media if they're out there, too!)

We'll keep updating the website as coaches continue to submit more information about their schools and teams.  This season truly promises to be our best yet.

As always, thanks for taking the time to look around our site.  Welcome to the LVQBA!

Follow the LVQBA all year long on our website and on our Twitter feed (@lvquizbowl) to stay updated on all of the excitement and action.

2019-2020 LVQBA Season Begins with Annual Coaches Meeting

School has been in session in Las Vegas for almost three weeks, and the Vegas quiz bowl scene followed suit Monday night by officially beginning its season with the annual LVQBA coaches meeting at Red Rock High School.

The meeting covered its usual logistics, but this particular edition stood out because of the exciting expansion of the middle school league for the 2019-2020 season.  Veteran coaches and LVQBA representatives were on hand to welcome a slew of new members to the quiz bowl family.  The LVQBA and its member schools are proud to welcome Somerset Lone Mountain, Somerset Aliante, The Meadows, and Coral Academy of Science Eastgate to the league.  All four schools are fielding completely new programs this year.  Some schools have already generated so much enthusiasm on their campuses that they will be entering multiple teams as well.

Four spots in the Middle School division remain.  All interested teams should register as soon as possible to avoid being wait-listed.

This year's high school league sees the return of nearly all of its mainstays--Clark, Liberty, Faith Lutheran, Sierra Vista, and Red Rock.  Five of the six programs have National Championship Tournament experience.  All six programs are duly capable of qualifying this year, too.  This year also marks the first time that the league will see 4-year members graduate.  The LVQBA will be honoring these players later in the season.

New Features This Season
This season, the LVQBA will be doing more to promote the teams that place their trust in us to provide a quality quiz bowl experience.  Look for more interviews and featured pieces on our schools and some of their players throughout the season.  The LVQBA is also exploring the possibility of adding additional individual honors (some serious, some with a more positive tongue-in-cheek feel) at the end of the season.

Middle School Exhibition Day
The LVQBA and the Red Rock Dragons are especially looking forward to the league's first annual New Middle School Exhibition Day on September 14th, when all new middle school programs are invited to come to RRHS and play pickup exhibition matches for free.  Many of the veteran HS players from Red Rock will be on hand to staff the matches and learn some valuable behind-the-scenes experience on running tournaments.  It promises to be a fun-filled day as a new generation of Nevada students and coaches get introduced to a style of quiz bowl that continues to bring in more interest within Nevada each year.

Follow the LVQBA all year long on our website and on our Twitter feed (@lvquizbowl) to stay updated on all of the excitement and action.

Red Rock HS Stages 3rd-Annual Quiz Bowl Camp

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It’s no secret that some of the best quiz bowl programs in the country have students who are willing to put in extensive preparation during the summer months when classes aren’t in session.  In Nevada, the number of students willing to take on that challenge has now increased for a third consecutive year with the conclusion of the most recent Red Rock Quiz Bowl Camp.
 
During the week of July 22nd, 13 students from Red Rock High School and Liberty High School collaborated for a week filled with advanced study on common topics in quiz bowl, analysis of packet answers, and advanced in-games strategies for more experienced players.  The results were evident by the end of the week, said RRHS head coach Matt Albert.
 
“If you were to take the best players just from Red Rock and Liberty, we’d have a nice little all-star team to represent the Vegas area.  It was an excellent week for the growth of quiz bowl out here.  The kids worked hard, and their teachers and administrators should be very proud of these students and their willingness to put in all of this time on their break,” Albert said.
 
This was the first year that Red Rock opened up their annual camp to students from outside their own building.  The willingness to let in other students from training was met with some raised eyebrows initially, but that’s a way of thinking Red Rock doesn’t subscribe to according to their coach.
 
“It wasn’t that we were trying to hide secrets and info from our competitors.  We simply wanted to make sure we had a good product before we offered it to the rest of our community.  I get that some coaches around the country are skeptical of coaching up students from their closest rivals, and that’s a choice they’re absolutely allowed to make.  We’re just not that kind of league, though.  Yes, we all want to beat each other in competition, but our collective focus has always been on how we represent the state on the national level.  Our rivalries are as friendly as they get.”
 
With school in Las Vegas scheduled to begin August 12th, it’s only a matter of time before those rivalries get played out again.  Thanks in part to the camp, the matches should continue to showcase the fruits of the rapid growth of the game in Nevada.

2018-2019 Year In Review:  Big Steps Forward For Nevada Quiz Bowl

As preparations for the expansion of the LVQBA get underway, it's time to get one last look at the past season and celebrate the accomplishments of the students who represented Nevada on a national level this past spring and summer.

Clark High School

The Chargers performed excellently at two different national-level tournaments this year.  In their first appearance of the year, they finished tied for 49th at the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament in Atlanta, Georgia.  The team went 7-5, averaging nearly 20 points per bonus (19.06) for the entire weekend.  The four-student team consisted of Eshaan Vakil, Blu Mehari, Alex Bean, and Shadman Kabir.  Also of note was the individual performance of Eshaan Vakil.  He finished 7th in the overall standings and was named a Tournament All-Star.

A few weeks later, the Chargers competed in the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Reston, Virginia, and finished in 35th with a 9-6 record.  What made this outing especially impressive was that Clark's roster only had 2 players all weekend--Vakil and Mehari.  Both players did exceptionally well against a powerful field.  In a trend that began at HSNCT, Vakil finished near the top of the individual standings, placing third overall.

Speaking of Vakil, he also participated in the NAQT Individual Player National Championship Tournament back in April in Rosemont, Illinois.  He finished in a tie for 21st overall, powering nearly a third of his questions.

Finally of note for Clark, the Chargers played an instrumental role in being community ambassadors for the game.  Both Vakil and Mehari were camp counselors at the Alliance for Academic Quiz Bowl's annual Coding and Quiz Bowl Camp.  Founded by Vakil's nonprofit organization, the camp works with high numbers of elementary female students to get them involved in both coding and quiz bowl--two areas around the country where girls tend to be underrepresented.

Vakil and Mehari's efforts were highlighted in this feature from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
"Quiz Tourney Winner Fights Las Vegas Stereotypes"

Liberty High School

The always-consistent Liberty High Patriots completed yet another successful season in 2019.  They made their third consecutive appearance at the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament.  With a somewhat shortened roster, the team still managed to win 3 games in Atlanta, tying their mark from the previous year.  The weekend also marked the end for Liberty's exceptionally strong senior class of Roy Margallo, Janavi Sathappan, Ryan Chappell, Jennalyn Tamio, and Conner Thornhill.  All of us at the LVQBA send our sincerest congratulations to them on their graduations.  We also thank every single one of them for helping build the league since Day 1 in 2016.

Margallo also competed for the second-straight year in the NAQT Individual Player National Championship Tournament, placing in a tie for 71st overall.

As the Patriots now look forward to 2020, they will rely on the leadership of Ryan Johns and Caleb Fears to help grow the next generation of Liberty Quiz Bowl.

Sierra Vista High School

One of the feel-good stories of this year no doubt was the growth of the Sierra Vista Mountain Lions.  When they began the year, their biggest concern was whether or not they'd be able to field a consistent roster.  Enter sophomore Moses Damena, the breakout star of the 2019 season.  With Damena adding to the strong performances from sisters Emma and Julianna Jurvelin, the Mountain Lions continued the growth of their program all season long.

Damena finished the year in style, representing Sierra Vista for the first time at the Individual National Player Championship Tournament.  Damena's efforts this season were later chronicled by the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
"Sophomore Represents Sierra Vista at Chicago-Area Quiz Bowl"

Red Rock High School

Struggling to find their rhythm for most of the season, the Dragons finally put the pieces together at the end of the year as they played their best quiz bowl to finish the season.  Motivated by their disappointment of not earning a wild card berth for HSNCT, Red Rock competed for the second time in three years at the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament in Rosemont, Illinois.  The team chose to make a full weekend out of it--traveling to the Art Institute of Chicago, checking out the Adler Planetarium, visiting DePaul University, and getting for some of them their first experience with deep dish pizza.  After a full day's worth of sightseeing, the team came through with 4 wins on competition day, easily eclipsing their best mark in school history.  Representing the Dragons were Josh Cruzado, Annie Vong, David Jelinsky, Alex Hewitt, Soleil Perez, and Sebastian Lopez.

The Dragons return everyone in 2020 and will have a senior class for the first time in school history.

Las Vegas Quiz Bowl Alliance

The year in review would not be complete without the LVQBA offering its most humble and grateful thanks to the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence as we received the Benjamin Cooper Academic Ambassador Award at the NSC in June.  We feel that this award gives significant validation to everything we're trying to do in providing high-quality quiz bowl experiences for students in the state of Nevada.  All of us at the LVQBA wish to recognize the Vakil family for nominating us and Greg Bossick (informal guru of Ohio Quiz Bowl) for his tireless support and guidance to our league.

We also wish to thank our highly-devoted volunteer staff of community members who make our tournaments a success each week:  Tim Woodward, Eric Bell, Lynda Burns, Rei Vital, Rush Wickes, Edgar Urena, and Ron Barth.

Also deserving of high praise are the coaches in our league who work with their students each week to help them improve not just as quiz bowl players but also become better scholars in the classroom:  David Fisher, Chuck Bean, Dave Jurvelin, Charlcie Holguin, Vaughnika Briggs, Jason Crowder, Mason Kitchens, and Matt Albert.

Last but not least, the LVQBA thanks everyone around the country who have been so supportive since our inception in 2016.  The national quiz bowl community is one of the finest in the nation, and it's a big reason why our coaches and players have fostered a collaborative atmosphere even during competition.  Many of our coaches work together and share secrets to improve their teams, and a large number of the students in our league have formed many friendships across schools.  All of this league-wide cooperation is a tribute to what the quiz bowl community prioritizes in deciding what they want the game to be and what they want it to do for students.

2019-20 League Information

For more more information on our fourth year of competition, please visit our Why Join? page.  Also, please feel free to contact us at lvquizbowl@gmail.com for any additional questions about the league and how to join.

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