So I was going to blog about the New Jersey science bowl competition a few weeks ago after it happened, but I decided the issue was too heated at the time, so I was going to wait until after it subsided to write about it, so that I could be more impartial, but then NHSMUN and other work took over so I put it off. But here it is:
As some of you may know, our AP IPLE team made nationals which is April 29-May 2, which is also the weekend that Science Bowl Nationals take place. Science Bowl rules stipulate that the winning state team must send its same team to nationals, so in other words, Doc won't let either jon or me compete because IF we advanced (last time we did was 2007), we would not be able to compete, even though we were willing to commute in DC to make it work. That being said, we appealed to the next link in the chain: Tony. Tony is in charge of the A team, so Jon and I told him the situation. Quite frankly, I told him, "You guys can't win states without us. let's do it right senior year, and put the best possible team together and see how far we can advance. I'd much rather have us win states and forfeit nationals, then not even place in the state tournament at all." (This is almost directly excerpted from my facebook message, so as arrogant as it sounds, it's what I truly believed deep down was true). Ton'y response was, "I believe in my team and you should believe in yours. I'd never enter a competition I didn't think we would win in, and we can even go 1-2 in states [ie they would get first, we would get second]." And so, we went into the competition Saturday as Tony leading A team: Karen, Amalan, Phil, Ray (the latter two which are juniors who moved up), and I led the B team: Jon, Wilson, Grace (soph), Aakash.
The first few rounds (as expected), were easy peasy. The tournament always matches the tough teams with scrub teams the first few rounds, not to mention the questions are ridiculously easy. However, A-team did...ok in the first round, winning by a slight margin. In the past 3 years I've done this competiton, the A-team always won by 200 points the first few rounds. The B-team won by a little over 100, not bad.
Next few rounds happened in the same fashion, we slowly beat teams one by one. Then we faced Montgomery A, a formidable team, but a team that has never made it past quarterfinals. If we won we would go on to face one of the West Windsors, both of which are very good. We held on close in the beginning, but we were too hesitant, and bonuses help them pull away - we lost that round. A-team did too, so we both fell into the loser's bracket.
We played a lot of scrub teams in the losers bracket to keep going (we had to play double what we would have in the winner's). However, after we beat Livingston by a sizable, yet uncomfortable margin, we found out that the A-team had lost again. This meant that they were out of the tournament and had to spectate us the rest of the way. Tony was devastated, I don't think I saw him look up once while we were playing. Phil and Ray were quiet, but again, they were juniors - they had another year. Amalan was quiet as well. I didn't say much besides a few comforting words.
Quarter finals eventually came and we were matched against Montgomery A again. I should mention at this point that for the last 3 rounds I pulled Aakash and permanently put Grace in because Grace was a surprisingly knowledgeable sophomore and Aakash didn't really contribute. I apologized to him afterwards because ideally we were supposed to rotate, but I did what I felt was best for the team and I have no regrets. I told the rest of my members we would take the rematch. As we played, the game was uncomfortably close. We led in the beginning, but by the 5 minute mark they started pulling ahead, farther and farther until they were leading by 20-30 points at the half. I regained focus and we started the second half slowly but surely. As we almost tied, Jon buzzed in on an energy question. Wilson answered but the moderator recognized Jon, and so we lost the points for that question. There was about ten seconds left when they asked the last question - we were down by 4 points and the toss-up was 4 points, so we had to beat the other team on this question to tie. The moderator read, "If the speed of light is 3.00*10^8 m/s and the wavelength is 1, what-" buzzz.
I buzzed in - I figured there's only one thing they could ask at this point and I had to risk it to win it. "1.00 Hz," I answered.
"That's correct" the moderator replied with a hint of a smile, but I didn't catch that as much as I was relieved that Wilson's blunder didnt' cost us the game.
Long story short, we got the 10 point bonus too and beat Montgomery in the historically closest game. I dropped my pencil after the bonus and embraced Jon and Wilson and shaking hands with the Montgomery captain. We lost to high-tech A the round after, who eventually went on to win the state title. But that match summed up my experience. It really was a pretty good day.
But I must return to my thoughts in the beginning. We undoubtedly could have medaled had he put the best people on one team. I wanted tell Doc to smd after the competition but there was no point. Sometimes "I told you so", just doesn't quite say it. And sometimes it's not even what you feel. I could rub in the huge blunder by both Doc and Tony forever. Quite literally even after college, I hope this decision will still bear something in their minds. But as I got mad that they quite literally fucked their team and my senior year (along with Jon's), I realized that I wasn't mad AT tony as much as I was mad FOR him. I tried to tell him what I thought would help us win, and ultimately, I wanted EB to bring back the state title as much as I wanted to win my senior year. Instead, for the first time in over a decade, we didn't place top 3. That can only hang over their heads. We split from here, so I hope there's something in this loss that everyone can pick up from and apply later in life. But it's been fun, and I had a great time playing with you guys...
