University Challenge 2022-23: Preliminary Quarter-Final 1: Southampton vs Durham

Good evening again my friends, and welcome to the quarter-finals of this year's UC! As someone said in the comments of my preview last week, there are no obvious favourites for this year's tournament (yet), it's a pretty even field of teams. Tonight proved this, with two teams who've proven excellent so far on the buzzer, facing off; the winners would only need one more win to go through, while the runners-up would need two and couldn't afford another loss.

Southampton won both their matches so far pretty comfortably, beating Balliol of Oxford 210-115 in the first round, and Christ's of Cambridge 175-90 in the second just two weeks ago. They were unchanged from those two previous wins: 

Ethan Lyon, from Northampton, studying Film

Magda Steele, from Poland, studying Ecology

Captain: Dom Belcher, from Worcestershire, studying Machine Learning 

Elliot Miles, from the Wirral, studying Marine Biology

Durham were narrow winners over fellow quarter-finalists Bristol in the first round, winning 195-185 on the final question of the game, but had no trouble in the second as they thumped Bangor 240-35 just last week. They were also the same four as before: 

Harry Scully, from Welwyn Garden City, studying Physics and Chemistry

Chloe Margaux, from Haringey in London, studying Sociology

Captain: Alex Radcliffe, from Edinburgh, studying Maths

Bea Bennett, from Icomb in Gloucestershire, studying English

 

So, off we set for the first time this round, and Mr Scully picked up where he left off last week as he took the first starter of the game, which asked after a building material and became pretty obvious when 'Aberdeen' was mentioned; Durham set a marker down with a full bonus set on fruits in the titles of books. A penalty set Southampton off the mark the wrong way, but Mr Belcher quickly made up for it by taking the third starter of the game; the Saints took a pair of bonuses on national parks. Mr Scully reincreased Durham's lead with a second starter, with just one bonus on tea going to the Wearsiders with it. The first picture round, on the Segre chart of Isotopes (no, me neither; suspect my Dad might've got something out of it though), went to Southampton; one bonus reduced the gap to 40-30.

A second starter to Mr Lyon then put them on level terms, and a full bonus set on video games put them into the lead. They increased it with another starter, and a sole bonus on astronomy, before Durham bit back with a starter and sole bonus of their own. The music round, on electronic adaptations of classical pieces, went to Southampton; another sole bonus took their lead back up to 85-55.

Back came Durham through Mr Radcliffe; just one bonus followed again, and a penalty then lost them those five points. But an atonement from Mr Scully and a full bonus set, an old fashioned UC set of three distinct questions linked by 'Mistral', took the Wearsiders back into the lead. A second starter and full house in a row took them into three figures first and put them in pole position going into the final stretch. The second picture round, on paintings by artists whose work the Nazis considered 'degenerate', brought Southampton back into the game; no bonuses followed though, leaving them trailing 115-95.

But a second starter in a row to Mr Lyon, and two bonuses on Holy Roman Emperors, meant the Saints were level again! Neither side took the next starter, but the next starter, a now out-of-date one about the line of succession, was taken by Mr Belcher, and a pretty straight forward bonus set on capital cities was quickly dispatched. But back came Durham, Mr Radcliffe doing the honours, and two bonuses on Goddesses in the Aeneid put them five behind! Next starter might win it; Mr Belcher buzzed first... but was wrong and lost five! Mr Scully swooped, was correct, and that plus two bonuses won the game for Durham. There was time for one final starter, which Mr Scully also took, but no time for any bonuses. At the gong, Durham won a fine game 165-135.

An excellent contest between two pretty well matched teams, very well played both! Well done to Durham, and very best of luck in the qualifiers! Hard lines to Southampton, but still a good performance that stands you well for the eliminators; best of luck in them!

The stats: Mr Scully was, just, the best buzzer of the game, with six starters to Mr Lyon's five. On the bonuses, Southampton managed 13 out of 24 (with two penalties) and Durham 16 out of 24 (with one penalty), so it was indeed a pretty close contest; well played again both teams!

Next week's match: don't know yet, I would guess Jesus vs UCL, but will let you know on Twitter when we know for sure.

Only Connect reached its second semi-final, a rematch between the Scrummagers and the Crustaceans. The latter led 6-0 after the first round, and 14-0 after the second, with their opponents, to be fair, getting either unluckily close but not right or getting really hard questions. A slightly better wall increased the Crustacean’s advantage to 24-7 going into Missing Vowels, and their final margin of victory after that was 29-11. They go on to meet the Strigiformes in, what looks like, a very good final; the Scrummagers return to face the Morporkians in the third place play-off next week.

 

Mastermind was fairly comfortably won by Mark Rogers, whose 24 points saw him five ahead of second placed Catherine Sparks. George Pope and Rebecca Messina completed the line-up with 16 and 18 respectively.

 

Counterpoint’s penultimate heat was a closely fought contest, but it was Kathryn Johnson who triumphed to join the semi-final line-up. One more heat next week, and then the semis begin.