2019 IHSA State Championship Tournament

The 2019 Illinois High School Association (IHSA) State Championship Tournaments ended the thirty-third State Championship Series conducted in Scholastic Bowl by the IHSA. It was the twenty-eighth season in which there were separate State Championship Tournaments held for small schools (Class A) and large schools (Class AA). For the twenty-third year, both tournaments were held at the Peoria Civic Center. The tournaments was held on Friday, March 13.

This state series was the second to be written under the guidance of head question editor Brad Fischer.

Advancement

Teams were assigned to one of eight sectionals within each class. Coaches then seeded the top 8 teams in their sectional. The IHSA then assigned the seeded teams to one of four regionals (1 with 8, 2 with 7, etc), with the remainder of the teams assigned to a regional geographically. The winners of the regionals would advance to their respective sectional tournaments, where they would play a three match round robin to determine a winner. The determination of the geographic boundaries of the Sectional was arbitrarily decided by the IHSA Office. Regional tournaments were held on Monday March 2, and Sectional tournaments were held on Saturday March 7.

Tournament Format

Each round was comprised of 24 toss-ups and accompanying bonus questions.

In the State Championship Tournament, teams were randomly assigned to pools of four, and played a three match round robin. The winners of each pool advanced to the Championship Match, and the runners-up in each pool advanced to play for third place. Ties were broken by head-to-head results or total points scored among tied teams (in the event of a three-way tie).

The top four teams earned trophies and medals for team members, coaches, principals, and activities directors.

CLASS A

2019 Class A IHSA State Championship Tournament

State Champion: Chicago Christian

Runner-Up: Williamsville

Third Place Southwestern

Fourth Place Winnebago

POOL #1

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Chicago Christian	420	Winnebago	180
	Gibault Catholic	210	Riverdale	180
2	Winnebago	450	Gibault Catholic	170
	Chicago Christian	600	Riverdale	60
3	Winnebago	290	Riverdale	110
	Chicago Christian	560	Gibault Catholic	90

POOL #2

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Southwestern	350	Robinson	190
	Williamsville	420	Tri-Valley	150
2	Tri-Valley	340	Robinson	180
	Williamsville	440	Southwestern	200
3	Williamsville	480	Robinson	190
	Southwestern	320	Tri-Valley	210

Third Place

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
Southwestern	220	Winnebago	200

Finals

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
Chicago Christian	270	Williamsville	260

CLASS AA

2019 Class AA IHSA State Championship Tournament

State Champion: UIUC Lab

Runner-Up: Auburn

Third Place IMSA

Fourth Place Stevenson

POOL #1

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Stevenson	420	Oak Park-River Forest	360
	Auburn	580	Carbondale	210
2	Stevenson	800	Carbondale	60
	Auburn	610	Oak Park-River Forest	260
3	Auburn	480	Stevenson	380
	Oak Park-River Forest	550	Carbondale	290

POOL #2

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Sandburg	350	Springfield	290
	UIUC Lab	460	IMSA	380
2	UIUC Lab	590	Sandburg	290
	IMSA	700	Springfield	160
3	IMSA	570	Sandburg	360
	UIUC Lab	760	Springfield	80

Third Place

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
IMSA	430	Stevenson	370

Finals

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
UIUC Lab	430	Auburn	390

Notes

• Auburn continued its streak of consecutive top-4 finishes to 18 straight years.
• Stevenson continued its streak of consecutive top-4 to 11 straight years.
• For the second consecutive year, Auburn lost the AA Championship by the exact score of 430-390.
• UIUC Lab would follow its IHSA Championship with a 2nd place finish at HSNCT and 3rd place finish at NSC, the best ever combined finish by an Illinois team at nationals.
• This was the first state championship for Chicago Christian.
• This was the third straight year to feature Williamsville in the Class 1A championship match.

IHSA State Championship Tournaments 1987 · 1988 · 1989 · 1990 · 1991 · 1992 · 1993 · 1994 · 1995 · 1996 · 1997 · 1998 · 1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2013 · 2014 · 2015 · 2016 · 2017 · 2018 · 2019 · 2020 (cancelled) · 2021 (cancelled) · 2022 · 2023 · 2024 Records Tournament Records Associated Individuals Sister John Baricevic (former question editor; current or former official) · Tom Egan (former question editor; former official)  · Brad Fischer (question editor)  · Rob Grierson (head of officials)  · Ron McGraw (former IHSA admin)  · Matt Laird (former official)  · Mike Laudermith (official)  · David Reinstein (former official)  · Mike Sorice (official)