York
defeated Trinity Laban way back in July, winning by 185-105 after a sprint in
the final quarter. The unchanged team might not have wanted to leave it so late
this time:
Alex Leonhardt, from Porthcawl in Wales,
studying Political Philosophy
Robin Virgo, from Stamford, studying
Chemistry
Captain: Rebecca Woods, from Chester,
studying Psycholinguistics
Edward Haynes, from Kenilworth, studying
Biology
New
College Oxford looked very impressive when they racked up a score of 230 in
their first match, made even more impressive by their opponents, Homerton,
scoring 145 and surviving to the repechage. The favourites for tonight’s match
were also unchanged:
Remi Beecroft, from Letchworth in
Hertfordshire, studying Psychology and Philosophy
India Lenon, from London, studying
Classics
Captain: Andy Hood, from Wasperton in
Warwickshire, studying PPE
Tom Cappleman, from Bracknell, studying
Maths
So,
on paper, New College looked the likely winners, but York would surely give
them a good match.
Well,
at first, it was all looking rather close. The sides swapped starters to start
with, with generally more starters than bonuses being answered correctly. Then,
after the first picture round, York began to pull away a bit, and pulled out a
lead of 100-45. Could a shock be on?
New
College thought otherwise. They began to buzz back into the match, with a run
of starters, including the picture round, on music performers from Sheffield.
The
third quarter began with Tom Cappleman beginning a surge on the buzzer not
dissimilar to one he showed in the first round. York’s lead soon became a
deficit and New College began to pull away into the distance.
One
starter question I managed to work out using DoND stats:
“If
there are five different coloured balls in a bag, how many different combos of
three are possible?”
Well,
it’s ten. At 5-box, there are ten different 2-box pairs you can end up with.
The same applies here, if you assign each coloured ball a board sum. Tom
Cappleman managed to work this out as well, and New College’s lead was up to
175-100.
There
was still plenty of time for York to recover the deficit, and Rebecca Woods
tried to launch a fightback by taking the next starter. It didn’t seem to work,
as New College continued to take starters, and soon, their lead was up to
215-115, and surely they were home and dry. But York weren’t going to just roll
over and die, and valiantly fought back by taking three consecutive starters,
but no bonuses went with them. At the gong, New College won by 215-145, but the
match was certainly closer than the score suggests.
York
did indeed give New College a good fight. It’s a shame they fell silent in the
middle phase of play, otherwise it could have gone right to the wire. Rebecca
Woods and Edward Haynes got three starters each, but the side was let down by
just 11 bonuses out of 27. Andy Hood and Tom Cappleman got five starters each
for New College, who answered 17 bonuses out of 39, which is pretty good, but a
slight step back from the 19 out of 33 they managed in the heat. Still, they do
have potential to do well in the quarters, so we’ll see how they fare there.
Next
week’s match: Warwick vs King’s (good luck James and co!)
Tonight’s
Only Connect was the first semi-final, and a really closely fought game as
well, with only one point separating the teams at the end. A fine display from
both teams, considering some of the questions were really hard, including one
Victoria Coren described as ‘evil’.
York seem to be strongest on the buzzer towards the end of shows... They might have picked up a few more gettable bonuses at the end without that time pressure, but New College were worthy winners and look like they'll be one of the teams to beat. York put up a good fight, though. Stronger than I'd expected but that just served to make the match all the more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd had that starter set - all those maths and physics questions! Oh well.