Good evening friends, and welcome to the first of this year's UC play-offs! As I said in my first round review last night, we have two play-offs where, on paper, one looks an easy win and the other too close to call. Tonight's was the 'close' one, as two teams whose first round scores were just ten points in it met; the winners would take the penultimate place in the second round.
Sheffield scored 170 in their first match; so did their opponent U.C.L., but it was they that took the tie-breaker question to win the game. They were the same foursome as before:
Rachel Haw, from North Yorkshire, studying Evolution and Behaviour
Andrew Fisher, from Sheffield (originally Newcastle), studying Pure Maths
Captain: Lewis Jones, from Haverhill in Suffolk, studying Journalism
Danny Lardner, from Blackpool, studying Geography
Newnham College Cambridge were with us just two weeks ago, where they finished with 160, just fifteen behind their opponents Courtauld. They were also unchanged from before:
Bethan Holloway-Strong, from Surrey and Australia, studying English
Hannah Bowen, from Gateshead, studying German, Russian and Polish
Captain: Roma Ellis, from Nottingham, studying Philosophy
Chén Zhou, from Suzhou in China, studying the History of Science
So, off we set again then, and Ms Ellis opened the scoring for the night by identifying Stockton's 'Infinity' Bridge; one bonus on social history followed from the opening set of the night. The Newnham captain took the second starter of the night as well, and the third too for good measure; no bonuses came from the first set, but two were taken from the second, on words containing 'erm'. The first picture round, on US state seals, gave Sheffield their first points of the night; a well taken full set reduced the gap to 45-25.
Ten points were then lost to two successive penalties however (albeit one of them was a 'just an' interruption), but Newnham hit the post of the open goal both times (topical football joke unintentional). Mr Lardner finally recouped the lost points, and Sheffield made up for it with two of the resulting bonuses. Only for another five to go on the next starter, where a year was needed and he was "ONE YEAR OUT!"; Ms Ellis wasn't, and Newnham duly took a full bonus set on the land of Shambala. Back bounced Sheffield via Mr Lardner again, giving them a bonus set on Graham Greene, which I suspect my Dad might've done well on; Sheffield did well too, getting two. A starter to Newnham and a single bonus on the Island of Java was followed by the music round, on Motown songs where James Jamerson played bass; Sheffield took this, and took two bonuses, which took the scores to 85-70.
Ms Bowen duly increased Newnham's lead with the next starter; no bonuses followed, but Ms Bowen then took a second starter in a row, and a single bonus did follow this time. A third Newnham starter in a row was then taken by Ms Ellis, giving them a bonus set on words featured in the lyrics of Barbie Girl (yes, really) that will certainly feature in this series' highlights reel if I decide to do one this year! They took another single one from that. They also took the second picture round, on rococo paintings of women pining for absent lovers, but got nothing from the bonuses, which nonetheless took their lead to 135-70.
Mr Fisher finally atoned for his earlier mistakes by identifying Ho Chi Minh for the next starter, and Sheffield kept themselves in the game with a full bonus set on script fonts. Mr Fisher did the right thing and took an educated early punt on the next starter, but this time was wrong and lost five; Mr Holloway-Strong picked up, and a single bonus put the Cambridge side within sight of victory. And when Mr Lardner shot wide with another educated flyer on the next starter, and Ms Chen took the points, that was game over; just one bonus followed again, but it didn't really matter now. Sheffield did deservedly reach three figures via a starter and a single bonus, and did take the last starter of the game too, but there was no time for any bonuses. At the gong, Newnham won 175-110.
A most enjoyable contest that I thought; well played both teams! Well done Newnham, a decent performance despite a slightly low bonus rate, and best of luck in the second round! Hard lines to Sheffield, who still did pretty well for themselves, and, had some of those early buzzes gone their way, could well have pulled it much closer; thanks for playing though!
The stats: Ms Ellis was the best buzzer of the night with six, while Messrs Jones and Lardner got three each for Sheffield. On the bonuses, Sheffield managed 13 out of 18 (with a damaging five penalties) and Newnham 11 out of 36; like last week, if they improve on that in the second round, they could definitely have a run in this series.
Next week's match: Bristol vs Oriel in the second play-off, then we break for two weeks of Christmas UC
Only Connect’s third qualifier
match was a much anticipated clash between two of the strongest performers of
the first round, the Cunning Planners and the Harlequins. The former led 6-4
after a strong first round where both managed multiple early buzzes, but the
former took the better of the second round to lead 11-8. A perfect wall saw
that lead edge up to 21-12 going into Missing Vowels, and that lead increased there
to give them a 27-16 win.
Mastermind was a low scoring match
that nonetheless ended pretty excitingly, with Colin Rogers-March and Christopher
McBride finishing joint first with 17 and no passes each; Colin provided the
only correct answer of the resulting tie-break round to win the game. Fiona
Templeton and Leigh Haggar also competed, finishing with 16 and 14 respectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment