1998 VHSL State Championship
The 1998 VHSL State Championship was held in late February 1998 at Charlottesville High School in Charlottesville, Virginia, and was the first VHSL Scholastic Bowl state tournament, concluding the inaugural series of scholastic bowl tournaments. 24 teams, the top two teams from each regional tournament, competed in three size classifications of eight teams each. The tournament was the only state championship held at Charlottesville, as subsequent VHSL tournaments have been held at William and Mary.
The tournament was initially not referred to as scholastic bowl, as a contemporary press release described it as an "academic competition."
Advancement
The top two teams from each district tournament advanced to the eight-team regional. The top two teams from the regional then advanced to the state championship.
Tournament Format
Each match consisted of a round of fifteen tossups, ten bounceback "directed questions" for each team, and a concluding phase of fifteen more tossups. Tossups were scored in the normal quizbowl way. Directed questions were worth 10 points each and functioned similarly to a single-part bonus, but their reading was not correlated to answering tossups. The format was somewhat based off that of the Mountain Academic Competition Conference and the Southwest Virginia Academic Conference, which previously conducted quizbowl competitions.
The eight teams in each of the three classes competed against each other in a six-round double-elimination tournament; this was the first time the format was used, after its introduction in the previous season.
The tournament used a question set written by Claude Sandy, a retired Academic Decathlon administrator with no prior connection to quizbowl, who also directed the tournament. Tournaments in his purview were noted for recycling questions and having less than 2 literature questions in an average match, most of which are on repetitive pet topics such as Zane Grey and the fact that Leo Tolstoy held the noble rank of "count." The 1997-1998 district set included questions recycled from "a variety of sources", including Academic Hallmarks and NAQT, and was "not to be used" in future tournaments.
Class A
| VHSL State Championship (Class A) | |
|---|---|
| Edited by | Claude Sandy |
| Champion | Radford |
| Runner-up | Middlesex |
| High scorer | Unknown |
| Site | Charlottesville High School |
| Field | |
| Stats | Unknown |
Radford won the Class A state championship. Middlesex placed second.
Teams attending
Radford (1st)
Middlesex (2nd)
West Point
William Monroe
Central Senior
Floyd County
Saint Paul
Thomas Walker
Class AA
| VHSL State Championship (Class AA) | |
|---|---|
| Edited by | Claude Sandy |
| Champion | Western Albemarle |
| Runner-up | Blacksburg |
| High scorer | Unknown |
| Site | Charlottesville High School |
| Field | |
| Stats | Unknown |
Western Albemarle won the Class AA state championship after winning a round seven playoff against Blacksburg. Blacksburg had been defeated by Western Albemarle in the first round but had beaten Western Albemarle in the sixth.
Class AAA
| VHSL State Championship (Class AAA) | |
|---|---|
| Edited by | Claude Sandy |
| Champion | Thomas Jefferson S&T |
| Runner-up | Lake Braddock |
| Third | Unknown |
| Fourth | Unknown |
| High scorer | Unknown |
| Site | Charlottesville High School |
| Field | |
| Stats | Unknown |
Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology won the Class AAA state championship. Lake Braddock placed second.
External Links
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