Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League

The Minnesota High School Quizbowl League is one of the most popular quiz bowl formats in Minnesota and is a member association of the Minnesota Quiz Bowl Alliance. It culminates in a tournament consisting of 16 of the top team. It is currently run on questions supplied by NAQT, derived from one of the A series they produce each year. It is directed by R Robert Hentzel and takes place on four different nights over a span of five and at four separate sites. The four sites are each home to one division, which are supposed to be divided equally by talent and location, but recently divisions have been rather lopsided. Each night a team plays four rounds within its division, except for the last night which is the "playoff" night, where the top teams from each site come together and play for the title in a single elimination playoff bracket. Each school can only send one team to the championship tournament. MNHSQB League championship tournament considered by many to be more prestigious than the official NAQT Minnesota State Championship, as it is generally has a more challenging field and is broadcast on television.

Format

MNHSQBL uses a Four-quarter format, though they are referred to as "phases". The first phase consists of twelve warm-up tossups, which are short and worth only ten points each. The second phase consists of standard NAQT tossups with powers and bonuses. The first two phases are combined for timing purposes, and are 9 minutes long. The third phase is lightning rounds consisting of ten related questions worth ten points each. The team that is not in the lead gets to go first and picks from three subjects for their round. They then have one minute to answer as many as they can. Then the other team has a 30 second bounce-back phase on questions heard but passed on or incorrectly answered. Then the lead team picks one of the two remaining lightning rounds, and they have one minute to answer followed by their opponent's 30 second bounce-back phase. If a team manages to get all ten parts of their lightning round correct, they get an extra 20 points. The fourth phase is more tossups with powers and bonuses, for 6 minutes. Neg fives are not used. This means there are a total of 1140 points available to a team in a round.

Questions

The questions are very easy, generally easier than NAQT A-Series questions. You can read a sample packet here.

History

Since the 2006-2007 season League play has been on NAQT questions. Before that it was run on Patrick's Press questions, and on Questions Unlimited in the mid-eighties. In 2009, Chaska won the league title; the two previous seasons were won by Eden Prairie. Very shady records can be found here. At one time, the MNHSQB league was the sole venue of high school quiz bowl competition in Minnesota, but many other tournaments on the circuit has since been held.

Past Results

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2000	Patrick's Press	missing results
2002	MN-01
2003	MN-02
2004	MN-03
2005	MN-04
2006	MN-05
2007	MN-06	111 (112 registered)	Eden Prairie	St. Anthony Village	St. Thomas Academy	Wayzata
2008	MN-07	110 (112 registered)	Eden Prairie	Orono	Minnetonka	Wayzata
2009	MN-08	100	Chaska	Eden Prairie	Saint Louis Park	Wayzata
2010	MN-09	100	Eden Prairie	Saint Thomas Academy	Chaska	Saint Louis Park
2011	MN-10	108	Chanhassen	Saint Paul Central	Eden Prairie	Wayzata
2012	MN-11	110	Wayzata	Saint Paul Central	Chaska	Mounds View
2013	MN-12	110	Wayzata	Saint Paul Central	Chaska	Eden Prairie
2014	MN-13	ongoing

External Links

• Minnesota Quiz Bowl Alliance
• Current (2013-14) standings