Good evening friends, and welcome back! Last week's UC was the best in a long time and we were all no doubt hoping that this newfound momentum would carry on into this week after the rather low scoring first round. Whoever won tonight would take the final place in the second round, which starts next week, as does the Fantasy UC tournament on Twitter; best of luck to all those taking part in that this year! On we go with the game...
Emmanuel College Cambridge lost to St Andrews by just five points in their first match, leading for most of it, but being overtaken on the final round of questions of the game to lose 140-135. They were unchanged from that previous game:
Nicole Pullinger, from Hong Kong, studying English
Nicholas Thatte, from Oxford (originally Greece), studying Physics
Captain: Kara Malcolm, from Guildford (originally Capetown), studying Engineering
James Wrathall, from Mistley in Essex, studying Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
The Royal Northern College of Music also scored 135 in their first match and were also narrowly beaten, by Dundee; trailing at first, they rallied back impressively, but were just pipped 145-135. They were also the same foursome as before:
Keelan Carew, from Medway in Kent, studying Classical Piano
Dominic Wills, from Cambridgeshire, studying Composition
Captain: Leela Chrisp, from London, studying Vocal Studies and Opera
Alex Robarts, from Great Hormead in Hertfordshire, studying Vocal Studies and Opera
Off we set once again then, and it was Mr Carew who opened the scoring for the night identifying 'rogue' as the word linking the various given clues (sadly, 'precedes Spear in the name of a Tom Clancy video game' was not one of them!); bonuses on Roman emperors gave RNCM two correct bonuses. Emmanuel were quickly out of the blocks too thanks to Mr Wrathall, giving them a bonus set on place names ending in 'ham', which they took one of. A second in a row gave the Cambridge side the lead, as did two bonuses, before RNCM took the first picture round, on works of authors translated in different languages; a full set of bonuses took them into a 45-35.
An unfortunate penalty though allowed Emmanuel to quickly overtake them, and they took one bonus on kinetic art. Mr Thatte then took two starters in a row, but, in both cases, just one bonus was taken. The Cambridge side were winning on the buzzers, but profligacy on the bonuses meant they couldn't pull away, as demonstrated when they only took one from a fourth successive set (one of which, Paxo claimed Mr Carew was trying to restrain himself from shouting it out to them!). The music round, on piano pieces played by Dame Nitsuko Uchida, went to RNCM (natch), and they, in contrast, took a full set (natch) (Paxo: "Is that ridiculously easy?!" Mr Carew: "For me!"), which cut the gap to 95-65.
Emmanuel recovered with a starter to take them into three figures, and the bonuses finally fell for them, a full set on Indian festivals. A second starter and full bonus set to the Cambridge side and suddenly things looked a lot more comfortable for them. RNCM pulled one back though as Mr Robarts remembered that old chestnut about the tug of war being an event in early Olympic Games, and they took two bonuses to just about keep themselves in it. The second picture round, on winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction, went to Emmanuel, who took one bonus to take their lead to 160-80.
As we saw last week, that's not insurmountable, as Ms Chrisp proved with a quick buzz of 'Les Miserables' on the next starter; bonuses on physics weren't to RNCM's liking, none taken, but a second starter in a row gave them bonuses on Franz Liszt, which they very much preferred, a full set. That was as close as they could get though, as Mr Thatte took the next starter and two bonuses pretty much confirmed the Cambridge side's victory. Two penalties in a row cut ten off their lead, but it didn't really matter now, and they recouped those points with the final starter; at the gong, Emmanuel won 180-115.
A good match I thought, played well by two pleasant and watchable teams, well played both! Well done to Emmanuel and best of luck in the second round! Hard lines to RNCM, but they gave a good account of themselves over their two games, thanks very much to them for playing!
The stats: Mr Thatte and Ms Malcolm were joint best buzzers of the night with four each, while Mr Carew and Ms Chrisp both took two each for RNCM. On the bonuses, Emmanuel managed 16 out of 30 and RNCM 13 out of 18, with both sides incurring two penalties.
Next week's match: the first second round match! Don't know who's playing, but hopefully we will midweek when the BBC updates their images on the website, and I'll tweet/retweet anything definite.
Only Connect completed its qualifying
round with the Ramblers vs the Data Wizards. The Wizards led 4-1 after the
first round, and that’s how the scores remained after an exceptionally tough
second round where, for the first time in OC history, neither team scored any points
at all! (I got the Beatles question) Two perfect walls soon made up for that,
the Wizards led 14-11 going into Missing Vowels, which they fared better on to
win 22-15.
Mastermind was won narrowly by Eleanor
Ayres, a noted winner on WWTBAM not that long ago, whose 21 points saw her just
pip second placed Mark Eaden, who led after the specialists, but didn’t fare as
well on GK. Nigel Booth and Gill Woon also competed and finished with 17 and 18
respectively.
Brain of Britain’s third semi-final
was the highest scoring one so far; Karl Whelan won with 15 points to take the
penultimate place in the final; Alan Burns and John Payne finished joint second
with 11 each and Toby Cox completed the line-up with six points.
No comments:
Post a Comment