Reinstein Varsity

The New Trier Varsity is a high school tournament held each December since 2005 at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. It typically attracts many of the top teams in Illinois.

History

In Spring 2005, student Nick Matchen asked Coach David Reinstein if the New Trier students could host a tournament. Reinstein said they could do it as long as they found good questions in Illinois Scholastic Bowl format. Nick and his friend Carlo Angiuli decided the best way to do that would be to write their own questions. Most of the questions were written during Fall 2005, the junior years of Nick and Carlo, with help from some of the seniors on that year's team.

Twenty teams attended the first tournament. The tournament used power pairings like the Scobol Solo, but due to the small number of teams and some logistical errors by Reinstein, there were too many repeat matches. In the Championship, Bloomington, featuring Kristina Warren and Hunter Fast, won a close upset against a very strong Auburn team featuring Tyler Kerr and Colleen Powers. A discussion during lunch of the tournament led to the formation of Aegis Questions, who would write the questions for the tournament in future years.

The second tournament, in 2006, followed a standard format of round robin brackets followed by single elimination in the afternoon. For the second year in a row, Bloomington won a close Championship Match. This time, they beat Oak Park-River Forest in the Final after OPRF had qualified for the afternoon as the 8th seed.

The third tournament, in 2007, returned to power matching and, for the first time, featured ACF style bonuses. There was rough weather the day of the tournament, forcing Bloomington and IMSA to cancel and the tournament to get off to an uneven start. Everything worked out OK in the end, however. In the Championship, Wheaton North continued its undefeated season by defeating Auburn. Wheaton North had finished in 3rd Place the first two years.

The 2008 New Trier Varsity was written mostly by '08 alumnus Jonah Greenthal and Reinstein with some contributions from New Trier alumni and players, Illinois ABT members, and Jeff Price and was edited by Greenthal. It essentially used ACF format except for the presence of computational math tossups and bonuses which were handled as usual in Illinois, and for the fact that bonus parts rebounded. Auburn went undefeated in the 32-team power-matching morning, then lost to only Loyola in the afternoon. Based on overall records, Auburn won the tournament and Loyola collected second place; Carbondale was third and Stevenson fourth, with Maine South as the consolation champion.

New Trier Varsity 2009 featured the long-awaited elimination of computational math, as part of a move to a near-ACF distribution. It was once again edited by Jonah Greenthal, assisted by Reinstein, Matt Laird, and Dan Donohue, among others. It was won by Auburn A in the second game of a final in which they had the disadvantage against St. Ignatius. The top scorer was Andrew Deveau.

The 2010 tournament was a mirror of GSAC, which that year was edited by J.R. Roach and Tommy Casalaspi. There were 24 teams from 4 states in the “Über-Competitive” division, and 24 teams in the “Standard” division. In the former, Auburn A won over Stevenson; in the latter, Keith Country Day A won over Fenton.

• New Trier Varsity