Past Glory

2001-2002

2002 Community College National Champs!!!

Valencia's 2001-2002 campaign proved to be its most successful ever. In November the team played in tournaments in three consecutive weeks. First, for the second year in a row, the team competed with the big boys at the ACF Fall Invitational at USF. One Valencia team of new players competed with university teams that included graduate students; as one would expect, they took a pounding, but they gained some insight into how much work it takes to be great at the game.

Next, Valencia hosted its annual Fall Invitational on West Campus, and for the first time in the tournament's five-year history, a Valencia team won. The Black team, comprising James Baker, Simon Ellis, and Virginia Clemmer won the title match - over Okaloosa-Walton. Baker was the tournament's high scorer with a 61.82 points per game average. The Red team also made the tournament semi-finals, led by new player Amy Harvey's 46 ppg. Kevin Kelley averaged 34 ppg for Red, and Valencia's Gold team, composed of all-rookie players, was led by Taz Zifos, who averaged an even 20 ppg.

The following weekend Valencia sent two teams to USF to compete in the second annual Fall Novice tournament, a competition reserved for first and second year players, including those from four-year schools. There, Valencia's Red team won the tournament with a heartstopping five-point victory over Florida Atlantic University in the finals. The team featured James Baker, also tournament MVP and high scorer, Virginia Clemmer, Simon Ellis, and Michele Maiden. This was only the first of Valencia's many championships of the season.

In January Valencia kicked off 2002 by competing in the Sunshine State Invitational at the University of Florida. The Red team took second in Division II (open to first and second year players) after losing its opening match to Florida State; as the tournament was a round robin, the Red team never had a chance for a rematch. FSU went 11-0, while the Red team went 10-1. James Baker continued his individual mastery, taking individual high-scoring honors for Division II.

The following weekend we made our yearly trek to Tallahassee for the Dalton Invitational and had our best success ever. Both the Red and Black teams made the playoffs, and in a stunning upset, the Black team, consisting of Taz Zifos, prodigal son John Gorman, Michele Maiden and USF transfer Hugo Brown, defeated the Red team in the opening round (on some questions that were a bit too slanted toward pop culture for the Red team's taste). The Black team then beat Abraham Baldwin in the semis, only to be pummeled by Pensacola in the final, 340-90. Little did we know then that that loss was a bad omen. On the positive side, Baker, playing for Red, took second in overall individual scoring, only five points behind Pensacola stalwart Jonathan Carp. The Dalton Invitational remains the one tournament which Valencia has never won; the coaches like to suggest that this is because the questions there are too short and thus take away our natural depth of knowledge, but we're a bit biased.

After Tallahassee came a new feature to the two-year quizbowl scene: the National Academic Quiz Tournaments sectional championship, a qualifier for a national championship tournament. We hosted the competition on the West Campus, using brand new building nine. Best of all, the Red team romped, going 12-0, including a 420-110 win over runner-up Bainbridge College (from Georgia). Baker was again tournament MVP, this time with 66.25 ppg. The win earned Valencia a berth in the NAQT Intercollegiate Tournament, held six weeks later in North Carolina. Bainbridge also qualified.

The next week Valencia's Red and Black teams took first and second at the FCCAA Regional Tournament held at South Florida CC in Avon Park, earning both teams berths in the State Championship, which Valencia hosted at the end of March.

At the State Championship, Valencia's Red team (James Baker, Simon Ellis, Amy Harvey, Cherie Ramirez, and Adam Samons) went 6-1 in the round robin, dropping one close match to Seminole, but still earning a spot in the final match. The Black team (Taz Zifos, Hugo Brown, John Gorman, and Kevin Kelley) went 2-5. In the videotaped final, the Red team squared off with Pensacola in a rematch of the 2001 final, having beaten them 290-200 in the earlier round robin match. At halftime, Red held a comfortable 300-160 lead. However, after moving out to a 330-160 score on the first question of the second half, the Red team was outscored 300-115 the rest of the way, losing on the last toss-up, which asked what poem begins with a certain quote from Dante's "Inferno." Jonathan Carp of PJC was quickly in with the correct answer, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." This stunning turnaround left Valencia with a 4-4 record in state final matches under coach Chris Borglum. Still, the team has been in the final in eight of the last nine years.

The team relaxes while touring the Duke University campus. Back row: Taz Zifos and Hugo Brown; Front: James Baker, Coach Boris Nguyen, Coach Lois McNamara, Amy Harvey, Coach Chris Borglum.

Next came the big one: the NAQT ICT at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Upon arrival in Raleigh, the team was treated to an excellent Carolina barbecue feast at the home of team captain Simon Ellis's father. The next day the team walked around the Neo-Gothic campus of Duke University and spent a couple hours in a great used bookstore. That evening match play began; the team lost very close matches to teams from Texas A&M and Columbia (an especially tough loss, coming on the last toss-up, the answer to which was "United Fruit Company"), though they got quality wins against Emory and Iowa State. The next day things got better with big wins over major college programs, like Cornell and Texas, though the team also lost to University of Chicago by ten (beaten on the last toss-up "Big Bertha") and Caltech by 20. More important, the team won its matches against the other two-year college teams, as a separate title would be awarded in that category. In the final match Valencia squared off with a very good Bevill State team and roared to a 230-115 win, with Baker capping off the victory by getting all 30 points on the last bonus, which asked first for "Kazakhstan" and then for its president, "Nursultan Nazarbayev." This brought Baker full circle from his very first appearance at practice nearly two years earlier, when he entered carrying a book titled "The Kazakhs." Sometimes life is nice and tidy like that.

After the giddy heights of winning the first-ever national title awarded to two-year college quizbowl teams, one more trip was made. One Valencia team (Baker, Amy Harvey, Taz Zifos, and Cherie Ramirez) and coach Chris Borglum (playing as UCF) were set to fly to Atlanta and then drive to Chattanooga to compete in the Moon Pie Tournament. However, upon arrival at the airport, it was discovered that their tickets read "August 26," not April 26 as they should have. After much frantic phone calling, the team was given permission to drive to Chattanooga, where they arrived near midnight on Friday. Both teams played Saturday, with Valencia in Division II, where they went 10-2, mostly against players from four-year colleges in their first or second year of quizbowl play (not necessarily freshmen and sophomores, however), and gave the only loss to eventual winner Tennessee. Baker finished as the second-leading scorer in Division II with 64 ppg. Borglum went 5-5 playing solo in Division I and finished as the number three overall scorer. After finishing match play around 8 p.m., the group decided to drive all the way back to Orlando and arrived a little before dawn in The City Beautiful. All in all, a nice way to end Valencia's best year ever.

The team moments before the national title match against Bevill State (Alabama). From left: Hugo Brown, James Baker, Simon Ellis, Amy Harvey. Note Simon's dad in the red sweater in the background.

Baker receives his trophy for being individual high scorer among CC players.