Friday was a bit topsy-turvy. It was our last day to practice before the State OBOB Tournament. A storm with high winds knocked out power at school and only half the team, both girls, arrived for our practice. It wasn’t until later we found out that the boys had been stopped at the door and refused entry. They were told the practice had probably been canceled. With no working phones, no one called and had no idea the boys were downstairs.
Fortunately, Saturday, the day of the tournament had no weather drama to keep us from participating. All the team members and their families arrived and were excited to get things under way. We won both of our matches in pool play and ended up with 40 points overall. Not a bad score.
The hardest part came next – waiting for the announcement of the seeded “Sweet Sixteen” round. We were happy to find out we were in.
And weren’t we surprised to find out that we had come out 6th overall in pool play!
At this point, it was sudden death. Winners moved on and others went home.The team from Vale were tough, but we managed to win after having the lead move back and forth a bit. We were on to the Elite Eight, which was another competitive match, but Stoller prevailed again. Our Final Four battle was against a school from our own district. Again, the two teams were very evenly matched, but we managed to be ahead at the end of the battle.
The Final Battle took place on the auditorium stage and was twice as long as the other battles: 16 In Which Book questions and 16 Content questions instead of the 8 of the other rounds.
Again, as one would expect at this level, the two teams were evenly matched. Cascade Middle School from Bend kept Stoller on their toes. Once more, each team led at different points in the battle, but, by the end of 32 questions, Stoller was ahead.
We were state champions!!
Although the trophy will spend the next year in Stoller’s trophy cabinet, it is spending the rest of the weekend with me and might spend a day or two in my classroom, too.
And so, I am putting OBOB to bed for another year. Well, I will, just as soon as my order for next year’s books arrive.
booksandbassets 