Gateway Athletic Conference

The Gateway Athletic Conference (or GAC) tournament features schools from the western edge of the St. Louis Metro Area extending from the towns of St. Charles, Warrenton and Washington. The Conference tournament is usually held in March, yet some have been held in February or even late January. The conference used Avery questions in 2007, Questions Galore questions from 2008-10, NAQT's Missouri packets from 2011-15, and has used IS-A sets with NAQT rules since 2016. The amount of teams at each tournament generally hovers around 8-12, with a few outliers.

History

The Gateway Athletic Conference tournament was first founded in 2002 with the assistance of Fort Zumwalt West coach Jeremy Gibbs. The first iteration of the tournament featured only four teams [1] Early on, the conference was dominated by Francis Howell Central and Fort Zumwalt West, yet the transition into more pyramidal questions, Francis Howell Central slowly declining, and Fort Zumwalt West's team going completely inactive resulted in a 4-year winning streak by Francis Howell. This streak eventually ended in 2015 when Orchard Farm defeated Francis Howell 440-370, only to be beaten by a Joe Stitz-led Washington the following conference in 2016. From 2016 to 2020, Washington maintained a 40-1 W/L record, their only loss coming in 2019 when Fort Zumwalt North temporarily took the title.

Participants

• Fort Zumwalt North
• Francis Howell
• Francis Howell Central
• Troy Buchanan
• Warrenton
• Washington
• Francis Howell North (Since 2009)
• Timberland (Since 2010)
• Holt (Since 2011)
• Winfield (Since 2013)
• Orchard Farm (Since 2013)
• Fort Zumwalt South (Until 2018)
• Fort Zumwalt West (Until 2011)

Results

Year	Champion	Runner-up	Top Individual(s)
2002	Francis Howell Central	Fort Zumwalt South	Unknown
2003	Francis Howell Central	Fort Zumwalt North	Unknown
2004	Washington	Fort Zumwalt West	Unknown
2005	Fort Zumwalt West	Francis Howell Central	Unknown
2006	Francis Howell Central	Fort Zumwalt West	Unknown
2007	Fort Zumwalt West	Francis Howell Central	Teresa 'Teri' Kilmer, FZW
2008	Francis Howell Central	Fort Zumwalt West	Becca Genet/Julia Price, FZW
2009	Francis Howell Central	Fort Zumwalt West	Julia Price, FZW
2010	Fort Zumwalt West	Francis Howell Central	Blake Hiza, FHC
2011	Francis Howell	Fort Zumwalt North	Unknown
2012	Francis Howell	Washington	Unknown
2013	Francis Howell	Fort Zumwalt North	Unknown
2014	Francis Howell	Holt	Annie Chen, Orchard Farm
2015	Orchard Farm	Francis Howell	Tyler Woosencraft, Orchard Farm
2016	Washington	Francis Howell	Emily Sigmund, FZN
2017	Washington	Orchard Farm	Joe Stitz, Washington
2018	Washington	Francis Howell	Ganon Evans, Francis Howell
2019	Fort Zumwalt North	Washington	Caleb Fick, FZN
2020	Washington	Holt	Heath Bana, Holt
2021	Washington	Holt	Heath Bana, Holt

References

• Top 4 (2002-2010)