Good evening again my friends, and welcome back to another Quizzy Monday! It's time to get serious now with OC beginning its semi-finals while UC begins its QF stage. I didn't do that blog on Oxford teams in the end, but I did have a quick look at the Oxford University Quiz Society page, which I hadn't for a while, and I notice that inter-college quiz competitions haven't been such a big thing since the pandemic, which may go some way to explain why only one Oxford team has reached the QFs in the four series since that. Anyway, on with tonight's first UC QF...
Imperial, the defending champions, got here via two very easy and high scoring victories, over Manchester in the first round and Wadham of Oxford in the second. They were unchanged from those two previous games:
Charlotte Stokes, from Chester, studying Applied Genomics
Mattia Elkouby, from South London, studying Chemistry
Captain: Matthew Spry, from Gateshead, studying Electrochemistry
Jaime Salamanca Camacho, from Madrid, studying Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces
Christ's College Cambridge won two Oxbridge derbies to get here, beating Exeter in the first round and St Edmund Hall in the second, both close matches until they ran away late on. They too were the same quartet as those previous times:
Anniko Firman, from The Hague, studying Classics
Brendan Bethlehem, from North London, studying Linguistics
Captain: Oscar Despard, from Dublin, studying Biochemistry
Linus Luu, from Orpington, studying Maths
Christ's defied the pre-match expectations by taking the first two starters and all but one of the bonuses, but a penalty allowed Imperial off the mark and they took two starters in a row of their own, including the first picture round, after which they trailed 40-35. A bit of a back and forth between the two teams followed in the second phase, before Imperial managed to sprint away a bit with two starters in a row. Christ's reeled them back by taking the music round, after which they'd cut the gap to 95-75.
Two starters in a row to Mr Spry pulled Imperial away into three figures, but Christ's responded in kind to keep well in touch. Imperial pushed further ahead with the second picture round, after which they now led 145-110. Still either team's game, but when Imperial took the next starter, Christ's were going to have to flat out go for it. And flat out go for it they did, taking two starters to close back up to 20 points. A third then put them just ten behind, and two bonuses meant it was level pegging! Mr Despard completed the comeback by taking the next starter, another two bonuses, and that was the gong! Christ's won 180-160!
An excellent contest to start the QFs on. Very well done Christ's, an excellent performance and a worthy victory; best of luck in the qualifiers! Bad luck to Imperial, but they can certainly bounce back in the eliminators; best of luck to them there!
The stats: Messrs Spry and Bethelehem were joint best buzzers of the night with five starters each for their respective teams. On the bonuses, Imperial managed 14 out of 27 and Christ's 18 out of 30 (with two penalties).
Next week's match: don't know yet, but I would guess Queen's vs Warwick
Only Connect arrived at its first
semi-final, a rematch between the Four Opinions, who got here undefeated by
beating the Bean Farmers, their opponents tonight and the Al Frescans, and the
Cat Cows, who have defeated the Harmonics twice and the Sprouters, but also
lost to their opponents tonight en route.
My Dad claims the same two points
as the Opinions on the Titanic question, and we sort of came close to getting
the train times question; the Opinions led 4-2 at the end of that. I claim the
same three points as the Cat Cows on wives of King Louises in the second round,
and my Dad the same three as the Opinions on the rivers question; the Cows had
turned it around to lead 8-7 at the end of that round.
The Cows went first on the Walls, but
had a bit of a tough one, failing to find any groups, but getting three connections,
so three points. The Opinions, in contrast, got a fairly quick full house, so they
now led 17-11 going into Missing Vowels. The Cows recovered well there, but the
Opinions held on to win 20-18 and go through to the final! Well done them and
best of luck there, and best of luck to the Cows in the third place play-off!
Mastermind’s second heat of the
year was opened by Krish Hook, who was answering on the Masters Snooker tournament;
a good round with just two incorrect answers earned him a solid score of 9. He
was followed by Laura Knightly, who was answering on Emmeline Pankhurst; a
couple of wrong answers, but she kept in touch with Krish, scoring a decent 7.
Next was Flora Playle, answering
on the David Tennant-led series of Doctor Who; after a strong start, she fell
off the pace and finished with 5 points. Finally, Anthony Thomas was answering
on Henry VII; he too started OK before falling away a bit, with a pass in the
equation as well, and he too finished with 5 points.
So, Flora returned first for GK, a
round which featured a question about the Travelling Wilburys near identical to
one on this morning’s Ten to the Top! A respectable 9 gave her a total of 14, an
OK score, but not enough you fancied. A similar round to Flora’s, he just fell
short of her score, 8 gave him an also OK total of 13.
You’d say it was now between Laura
and Krish to decide who went through. Laura went first, but she too had a bit
of a stop-start round; she did do enough to take the lead, also scoring 8,
giving her a decent total of 15. Krish now needed 7 to win the game; his round
was also a bit sluggish, but he did more than enough in the end, doubling his
score with another 9 giving him a winning total of 18! Well done him, and thanks
to the others for playing.
And that's another week done! A pretty good quality night of shows as well. Thanks as ever for reading; we'll be back same time same place next week with the antepenultimate OC, and thus full line-up, of the current season; so, see yous then...
If both Mastermind and UC continue weekly, their finals will both be on the early May bank holiday.
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