St. Joe Wins Brutal Three-Way Battle

Because of a scheduling conflict, Culver Academies asked St. Joseph's to host the 2006 NAQT Indiana Qualifier on March 18th, and home proved to be very welcome for the Indians.

The victory for St. Joe, however, was no cakewalk. Both they and defending state champ Lafayette Harrison were in the same seven-team group, dubbed "the House of York". Not surprisingly, St. Joe and Harrison finished 1-2, with the game between them featuring aggressive play -- 70% of the questions were either powered or negged.

Meanwhile, in "the House of Lancaster", the tournament's defending champ, Culver Academies' A team, was sailing along until they got themselves in too deep a hole against Harrison 2. St. Joe's B team also finished 5-1, losing only to an up-and-coming Adams team. The two teams had to break the tie for semifinal seeding by playing a half game, won by Culver. (It should be noted that Adams almost forced a three-way tie, but Harrison 4 spoiled their playoff hopes.)

Falling under the heading of the bizarre, St. Joseph's 1 and 2 teams, as the #1 and #4 seeds, faced each other in a semifinal, with predictable results. In the other semi, Culver Academies and Harrison were locked in a death struggle. This was without a doubt the game of the tournament, not decided until Harrison, trailing by only 5 points, missed the last tossup.

St. Joe then won over Culver in the championship game, 335-195, while Harrison took out their frustrations on St. Joe 2 to claim third place. The other teams in the tournament played friendly best-of-three half matches for placing: the most interesting being Twin Lakes 1 versus Harrison 3, with the latter forcing a decisive game before the former prevailed.