Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League

The Minnesota High School Quizbowl League is one of the most popular quiz bowl competitions in Minnesota. It is currently run on questions supplied by NAQT, derived from one of the A series they produce each year. The league is directed by R. Robert Hentzel and takes place over multiple nights at separate divisions, which compete at different sites. Each night, a team plays four rounds within its division. After all divisions have played 12 rounds, teams from the top 16 schools convene for a double-elimination playoff. Each school can only send one team to the championship tournament. The MNHSQB League championship tournament considered by many to be more prestigious than the official NAQT Minnesota State Championship, as it is generally has a more challenging field and is partially televised.

Divisions

For the 2020-21 competition, the MNHSQBL will be run online via Zoom and Buzzin.live. As the tournament's being online means that the geography of competing schools is not a concern, the divisions were renamed as Divisions I, II, and III. Due to a lack of teams, Division I was cancelled and all teams registered for it switched to Division II and Division III. Schools are listed in the division they played in for the 2019-20 season, unless they have registered for 2020-21, in which case their division status has been updated.

Format

The current format consists of two eight-minute halves of NAQT tossups and bonuses, with a pair of lightning rounds after the first half. The lightning round consists of groups of ten related questions worth ten points each. The team that is not in the lead gets the first choice of three subjects for their round, and has one minute to answer as many as they can. The other team then gets a 30 second bounce-back phase on questions the first team missed. After this, the process is repeated with the leading team choosing from the remaining two choices. 15-point powers are used in league play, but -5 interrupt penalties are not.

In previous years, MNHSQB games consisted of four "phases." The first phase consisted of twelve very short warm-up tossups. The second phase consisted of standard tossups with powers and bonuses. The first two phases were combined for timing purposes, and were 9 minutes long. The third phase was a lightning round, and the fourth was more tossups and bonuses, for 6 minutes.

Questions

Regular season play uses tossups and bonuses from NAQT's A-Series and lightning rounds from its Standard Television Series. The playoffs use questions from a regular NAQT set, which are more difficult. You can read a sample packet of A-Series questions here.

History

For many years of the pre-NAQT era, all events were held at Burnsville, so that all schools had an opportunity to appear on public television. Patrick's Press questions were used in the years preceding NAQT's involvement, and Questions Unlimited provided questions before then, in the mid-eighties. Records suggest that it was once part of a quiz show on KSTP. Very incomplete records of those years can be found here.

Since the 2006-2007 season, play has been on NAQT questions. Wayzata has the most titles in the NAQT era, with six. Eden Praire is second with five. Wayzata also holds the record for points in a game in that era, having scored 1,035 points against Edina during round 6 of the 2017-18 season.

Past Results

Pre-NAQT era

Year	Champion	Runner-up
1999	Chaska	Unknown
2000	Chaska	St. Thomas Academy
2001	St. Thomas Academy	Minneapolis Southwest
2002	St. Thomas Academy	St. Louis Park
2003	Chaska	St. Thomas Academy
2004	Chaska	Eden Prairie
2005	St. Thomas Academy	Chaska
2006	St. Thomas Academy	Chaska

NAQT era

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2007	MN-06	98	Eden Prairie	St. Anthony Village	St. Thomas Academy	Wayzata
2008	MN-07	112	Eden Prairie	Orono	Minnetonka	Wayzata
2009	MN-08	100	Chaska	Eden Prairie	St. Louis Park	Wayzata
2010	MN-09	100	Eden Prairie	St. Thomas Academy	Chaska	St. Louis Park
2011	MN-10	108	Chanhassen	St. Paul Central	Eden Prairie	Wayzata
2012	MN-11	110	Wayzata	St. Paul Central	Chaska	Mounds View
2013	MN-12	110	Wayzata	St. Paul Central	Chaska	Eden Prairie
2014	MN-13	105	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	St. Thomas Academy	Blake
2015	MN-14	130	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Blake	Edina
2016	MN-15	131	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2017	MN-16	139	Wayzata	St. Thomas Academy	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2018	MN-17	134	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Mounds View	Edina
2019	MN-18	118	Mounds View	Wayzata	Burnsville	Eden Prairie
2020	MN-19	126	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Mounds View	Burnsville

External Links

• Current (2019-20) standings