2007 IHSA State Championship Tournament

The 2007 Illinois High School Association (IHSA) State Championship Tournaments ended the twenty-first State Championship Series conducted in Scholastic Bowl by the IHSA. It was the sixiteenth season in which there were separate State Championship Tournaments held for small schools (Class A) and large schools (Class AA). For the eleventh year, both tournaments were held at the Peoria Civic Center.

The tournament was managed by John Rathbun, and equipment furnished by Buzzersystems.com.

Advancement

Teams were assigned to one of eight sectionals within each class. Teams were seeded by the coaches, and teams would then be assigned to one of four Regionals within each Sectional. 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.

Tournament Format

Each round was comprised of 30 toss-ups and accompanying bonus questions.

In the State Championship Tournament, teams would be randomly assigned to pools of four, and play a three match round robin. The winners of each pool would advance to the Championship Match, and the runners-up in each pool would advance 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 process of breaking three-way ties was new this year, and had been proposed by Coach Mike Sacks of Homewood-Flossmoor. Sacks' team had taken three losses, but a concern arose when he wanted to play more of his reserves in the third and final pool round, as the team he was playing was still playing for advancement. He felt that it would have been questionably ethical to play his reserve players when he had played starters against the other teams. He felt that by altering the rules in such a way would permit teams in such a position to play reserves without worrying about affecting the outcome of the tournament.

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

Questions

For the seventh year, the questions were written by a group of retired coaches and person from other states.

CLASS A

2007 Class A IHSA State Championship Tournament

State Champion: Lutheran Schools Association of Decatur

Runner-Up: Columbia

Third Place PORTA High School

Fourth Place The Latin School

POOL #1

Decatur Lutheran swept through their pool with a 3-0 record. The Latin School went 2-1 to advance to the third place match.

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Decatur Lutheran	395	Fairfield	194
	Latin School	301	Beardstown	108
2	Latin School	219	Fairfield	214
	Decatur Lutheran	327	Beardstown	78
3	Fairfield	173	Beardstown	73
	Decatur Lutheran	230	Latin School	192

POOL #2

Columbia went 3-0 to advance to the State Championship Match. PORTA went 2-1, and advanced to the third place match.

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	PORTA	217	Morrison	145
	Columbia	225	Macomb	176
2	PORTA	249	Macomb	103
	Columbia	222	Morrison	82
3	Columbia	170	PORTA	132
	Macomb	152	Morrison	97

Third Place

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
PORTA	187	Latin School	135

Finals

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
Decatur Lutheran	231	Columbia	168

CLASS AA

2007 Class AA IHSA State Championship Tournament

State Champion: New Trier High School

Runner-Up: Wheaton North High School

Third Place Auburn High School

Fourth Place Libertyville High School

POOL #1

Auburn and Wheaton North both posted 2-1 records, with the round one victory by Wheaton North over Auburn sending Wheaton North to the Championship Match and Auburn to the third place match for the fourth consecutive year. To add to the drama, each of the four teams was 1-1 after two rounds (a first in tournament history).

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	Carbondale	334	Bloomington	300
	Wheaton North	327	Auburn	285
2	Bloomington	291	Wheaton North	290
	Auburn	348	Carbondale	211
3	Auburn	337	Bloomington	258
	Wheaton North	356	Carbondale	201

POOL #2

New Trier swept the pool (3-0) to advance to the Championship Match. Libertyville went 2-1 and advance to play for third place.

Round	Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
1	New Trier	340	Libertyville	209
	Hinsdale Central	198	Joliet Township	182
2	New Trier	493	Hinsdale Central	76
	Libertyville	359	Joliet Township	65
3	New Trier	385	Joliet Township	131
	Libertyville	334	Hinsdale Central	157

Third Place

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
Auburn	279	Libertyville	145

Finals

Winning Team	Score	Losing Team	Score
New Trier	325	Wheaton North	218

Notes

• Twelve years after their first appearance in the State Championship Match, New Trier finally won a State Title. The Final Match started off very low scoring, but New Trier slowly pulled away on the strength of eight tossups answered by Carlo Angiuli.
• This season marked the first time since 2000 that each State Championship Tournament was won by a team winning their first State Championship.
• One of the top players for Decatur Lutheran was Jonathan Ryherd, whose father was the Principal and mother was the Coach. Far from nepotism, Ryherd was also selected by the coaches of the state as a member of the All-State First Team based on his all-around excellent play for the year.

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)