Proud Auntie Moment #998834

Little Miss Hannah just keeps on progressing in Bible Quizzing. Here is the latest report from Lance:

Yesterday and today (Friday and Saturday) we quizzed in Columbus OH at the Extravaganza. 15 teams in the Beginner division. We had three teams from Calvary. I coached the #3 team, which had Hannah and two other girls that knew their verses but had not been answering many questions in tournaments. This was the first tournament that this group had quizzed together. The head coach decided to try it as an experiment in hopes that it would give them more of an opportunity by being out from under the more aggressive quizzers on our first 2 teams.

In our first quiz we needed the get the last question to win. Hannah had 4 correct but hesitated and her teammate buzzed in - and missed. Hannah was high scorer but her passivity probably cost us the quiz.

In the second quiz we were behind 70 to 10 on question # 10. Hannah hadn't even attempted a question. I called timeout and told the girls that they needed to hit the buzzer a word before they wanted to and that I didn't care if they missed the question or not...I just wanted them to prove to me that they could beat the other team to the buzzer. Hannah proceeded to get #10, 11, 12, and 13...including two on beautiful interruptions. All we needed was one of the last two to win. The other team got #14. But on #15 Hannah interrupted at the perfect spot on a quotation question and answered perfectly.

Our third quiz was against a very good Missouri team. Hannah continued her hot streak by getting 5 ten point questions and quizzing out with 6 correct on question #11. It was the first time Hannah has ever quizzed out in a tournament. Unfortunately her teammates could not get a single question in the quiz and we lost by 5 when the other team got both #14 and 15. In hindsight I should have told Hannah to only answer a couple 10 point questions. But I had no idea she would go on such a hot streak. For the string of 12 questions from our second and third quizzes she answered 10 out of the 12, with half of them interruptions.

Needless to say, the experiment was a success. The other two Calvary teams are now lobbying to have the coach put Hannah back on their teams. I am obviously biased, but today Hannah was quizzing as well as any quizzer in the Beginner division. Honestly, I was a bit dumbfounded watching it all. It reminded me an awful lot of watching another little girl blossom as a quizzer some 27 years ago. She ended up with an 83 point average, which would have put her 5th highest in the tournament except that she had to have 4 quizzes to qualify for all tournament team.

It appears that our niece had an awakening this weekend! If you've been involved in quizzing, you were feeling as nervous as I was reading this. Losing by 5 is more difficult than losing by 50! So close! But we're so proud! Look out quizzing world, Hannah McElhaney is on the move! Oh, and the girl from 27 years ago... Les and Lance's little sister, Lisa.