University of Illinois Lab
| University of Illinois Laboratory High School | |
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|---|---|
| Location: Urbana, IL | |
| Club Presidents | Tim Cho, Dylan Bowman |
| Coaches | Chris Butler, Brad McLain, UIUC ABT |
| State Championships | 2015 IHSA (A) 2018 NAQT(Small School and Overall) 2018 Masonic (AA) |
| National Appearances | MSNCT: 2018 HSNCT: 2014, 2015, 2018 SSNCT: 2018 NSC: 2016, 2017 |
| Program Status | Active |
| School Size | 325 students, 20-25 on A, B, and C Teams |
| NAQT Page | link |
Not to be confused with Normal University High School or University of Chicago Laboratory School
University of Illinois Laboratory High School, or "Uni", is a university-funded lab school on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana. It includes a composite year for 7th and 8th grades alongside the standard four years of high school. As a result, Uni's quiz bowl program includes both a middle school team and a high school team. Uni's quiz bowl teams are directly affiliated with the University of Illinois Academic Buzzer Team, with the latter often providing staff for high school tournaments that Uni attends or hosts.
The Early Years (2012-2015)
The Uni High Scholastic Bowl team first entered the local quiz bowl circuit in 2012 and has since expanded to include a B team and a C team, with about 20 active members on all teams. The team is coached by history teacher John Butler and Brad McLain of the University of Illinois. Although the school is known "Uni High" throughout the Champaign-Urbana area, teams from other parts of the state tend to refer to it as "Uni Lab", "Urbana U-High", or "University Lab School". People from other parts of the country often confuse it for the University of Chicago Lab School at national championships.
Uni A made its debut at an unspecified tournament, where they only scored -5 points against IMSA (which scored over 500) in round 1. At the 2013 NAQT State Championship, they placed 30th, but qualified for the 2014 and 2015 HSNCTs due to other victories, failing to make playoffs both times. In 2015, Uni won the Class A IHSA State Championship after a narrow victory against Peoria Christian. To this day, the quiz bowl team is the only IHSA activity in Uni ever to take the first-place trophy. However, Uni was not a top team at the state level overall among schools of all sizes, performing poorly at many tournaments with Chicago-area teams in its first three years of existence as a club.
Into the Big Leagues (2016-2017)
Because of the IHSA's controversial success factor policies, Uni was moved up to class AA because it is a selective-admissions and non-bounded school, despite having only 320 students. However, the influx of strong players such as Tim Cho, Ethan Ashbrook, and Dylan Bowman laid the foundations for a bright future. In its first appearance in the IHSA State AA Finals in 2016, Uni went 1-2 and thus did not qualify for playoffs. The team placed second at the 2017 class AA IHSA tournament, losing to IMSA 500-320 in the championship round after beating Carbondale, Auburn, and OPRF. At the NAQT State Championships, Uni placed 11th in 2016 and 9th in 2017. Despite this, Uni managed to become the runner-up at Masonic for both years, primarily because all the better teams were placed in Class AAA and Uni was placed in class AA. Even though Uni's performance started to improve, top teams in Illinois still saw them as a regional power rather than a state contender, and the team almost never showed up on national polls and rankings.
Breakthrough Year (2018)
Beginnings
Fall of 2017 saw the influx of over ten freshman, several of which played quizbowl at their middle schools. The addition of freshman Jonathan Lau to the A Team resulted in a near-complete coverage of the entire canon, as he filled in many of Tim and Dylan's holes in history and science, respectively. As Uni A began a long string of first-place wins with the IHSSBCA Kickoff at Mattoon, the team gradually began to make a breakthrough onto the national scene. Before long, Uni was universally recognized as a state contender by most top quiz bowl players and teams in Illinois. However, its geographic isolation from the other top teams and lack of administrative funding and support meant that Uni A rarely had the opportunity to play teams better than them.
Success at NAQT State
In 2018, a team comprised of Tim Cho, Ethan Ashbrook, Dylan Bowman, and Jonathan Lau won the NAQT Illinois State Championship by narrowly defeating Auburn in an advantaged final 350-320, finishing out the tournament with a 12-1 record. Uni became the very first school from Downstate Illinois to win the event. With only about 320 students, it also became the smallest ever school to win a large school or open division tournament in Illinois. While defending champion, Stevenson, was not present because of poor weather and icy conditions, Uni also became the first team to win the championship with all four starters posting over 20 PP20TUH for the tournament.
Masonic Victory and IHSA misfortune
The following month, Uni clinched a first-place win over Latin in the Masonic tournament, which was its very first Masonic Win. Uni then entered the IHSA State Series the next week. Because of gerrymandering to separate the top four seeds, Uni A was forced to travel roughly 100 miles north to Streator, where they breezed through the regional. At sectionals, which was just 20 minutes away, Uni cleared the field after a close shave with regional powerhouse Mahomet-Seymour.
At the IHSA State AA Championship, Uni was placed in the same pool as Stevenson and IMSA due to unfortunate luck with seeding. Uni fought hard against IMSA, evening out the score with just five questions to go. However, their hopes were crushed by IMSA sweeping the last five tossups. After beating Macomb, Uni faced off against Stevenson, and was soundly defeated 570-270. As a result, they did not even qualify for the fourth-place game, ending the team's hope of claiming the triple crown of Illinois state championships.
National Failures
At SSNCT, Uni placed 5th in the open division after a lackluster performance and low power counts against Friends Select A and Latin A. 2018 also marked Uni's very first appearance in the HSNCT Playoffs. Due to a seeding mishap, they were forced to play against Lexington in the very first round. Although Jonathan Lau powered the first tossup, that proved to be Uni's only power of the entire game, as the much stronger Lexington team easily defeated Uni 400-240. In the losers' bracket, Uni faced off against Carnegie Vanguard, which coincidentally was also a stronger team. Negging and lost buzzer races by Uni A eventually brough Uni's HSNCT playoff run to an end, resulting in an unfortunate 51st place finish. Due to financial constraints and a lack of support from administration, Uni was unable to attend PACE NSC or NHBB Nationals.
Individual Recognition
However, despite all the misfortune, 2018 marked the first appearance on the class AA All-State First Team (Tim Cho), as well as the first appearance on a NASAT team (Ethan Ashbrook on Illinois B). Tim Cho, Ethan Ashbrook, and Jonathan Lau were also selected for the local All-Sectional, again asserting Uni's position as the dominant Illinois team south of Chicago.
Current Status
A Rough Start
A player poll conducted by Hanson Hao and Arjun Nageswaran during June of 2018 placed Uni Lab fourth in the state. However, the low number of votes (only eight) prevented a more accurate ranking. Later, coaches and players from all over the United States voted for the top 25 teams in the country. Uni Lab came in 23rd, somewhat lower than many people expected.
On September 29th, 2018, Uni placed second at the Illinois Earlybird. Junior Ethan Ashbrook impressed with his stunning performance and high power count due to the distribution of literature questions. Dylan Bowman also performed well with the Fine Arts and Science questions. However, Jonathan Lau performed very poorly compared to the previous year, putting up low power counts and PPG, because of the low geography distribution and the lack of a specialist ability other than in geography. Tim Cho also had a less outstanding performance than usual, despite a high power count on history and less competition from Jonathan for history buzzes. Back-to-back losses against IMSA resulted in a runner-up finish, although Uni A did manage to beat Stevenson A for the very first time.
Earlybird was also a bad day for Uni B and C. Due to a variety of reasons and a heavy homework load, most of the C and D Teams did not show up, resulting in Uni having to move players up from lower teams. For the entire C Team with the exception of Arav Jagroop, Earlybird was their first-ever tournament. Uni C ended up going 1-9, pulling off one win against Monticello A. Uni B also experienced a good deal of misfortune. Because of losses to Glenbard North A (due to Uni B's history player being absent) and a loss to Latin B, Uni B finished out the day by clearing the field in Consolation II.
Success at Solo
In October, Arjun Nageswaran, William Groger, and John John Groger launched a new system of ranking teams, designed to be a relative ranking rather than an absolute one (such as Fred Morlan's HSQBrank. The first ranking placed Uni Lab in the #2 spot, mainly because several strong teams had not played a tournament yet. The next set of rankings placed Uni in the #6 spot, solidifying Uni's presence on the national playing field. However, the school's administration, despite their pride in the quiz bowl team, refused to support the team in any way due to financial hurdles.
Despite these difficulties, the members of the Uni A team unanimously decided to attend tournaments in the Chicago Metro Area in the 2018-2019 season, to play against better teams and also to avoid trashing downstate tournaments with their nationally-ranked team. The first of these tournaments was the 2018 Scobol Solo, held at New Trier High School in Winnetka. Unfortunately, top mACF scorer Ethan Ashbrook could not attend because of IHSA Cross Country Sectionals.
Dylan Bowman started out the day 4-0 before lunchtime, facing no significant opposition except from Barrington's Michelle Yang. He finished off the morning with the #1 Card. However, Jonathan Lau was soundly defeated by eventual champion Kevin Kodama 13-6 after a close shave with IMSA's Matthew Lee. Tim Cho unfortunately faced Ethan Strombeck in round 4, where Ethan defeated him 16-3. At lunchtime, Jonathan and Tim both had 3-1 records. Jonathan and Tim finished with the 14 and 10 cards, respectively.
In their fifth game, Tim Cho and Jonathan Lau defeated Isaiah Zillman and Abigail Bergan, respectively. However, #1 Dylan was defeated by #8 John Paul Taylor in a close game. Because Dylan now possessed the #8 card, it meant he unfortunately had to play #10 Tim Cho in round 13. Dylan ended up beating Tim 9-8, with the final tossup going dead. Jonathan, on the other hand, endured another close shave with Barrington's Abraham Holtermann, then avenged Dylan's loss to John Paul Taylor by beating him 12-6. Jonathan and Dylan's 6-1 records meant that they would both be in the finals, the very first players from Uni Lab to do so.
In the final game, Dylan was eliminated after 40 questions, finishing 6th. However, he managed to win four categories simultaneously due to his strong knowledge of Fine Arts, Chemistry, and Physics. Jonathan Lau narrowly escaped elimination by defeating Aristotle Vainikos in a sudden-death tiebreaker. However, he stood no chance against strong players such as Kevin Kodama, Hanson Hao, and Ethan Strombeck. Due to his lack of dominance in one single subject and frequent hot and cold streaks, he scored zero points in the third phase of the finals and was eliminated along with Ethan. Jonathan Lau's fourth-place finish came as a surprise to many, because he was only a sophomore. He also boasted the second-highest conversion depth for a single category in the tournament (25.3%, Biology), narrowly edged out by Kevin Kodama's 25.0% Conversion Depth in World History. Even though Tim Cho could not make it to the finals at his first and last Scobol Solo, the whole team agreed that it was a fairly successful day.
November and December
On November 3rd, University Lab sent one team to the UIUC ACF Fall HS Mirror. Although they lost to Fremd in the prelims, they managed to keep their hope alive by decisively defeating IMSA, Auburn, and St. Joseph. A difficult loss against DCC resulted in another game with Auburn, which they won despite Ethan Ashbrook's absence.
At the IHSSBCA Kickoff at Stevenson, University Lab A and B competed in the Über-Competetive division. Despite the absence of Ethan, they managed to beat IMSA for the second time in a row, and avenged their loss to Fremd by defeating them in the first round. Uni A finished 2nd after two losses to Stevenson, and Uni B finished 7th after two close shaves against Stevenson B and Hinsdale Central A.
| University Lab roster | |||||||||
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| Upperclassmen
Seniors (Class of 2019)
Juniors (Class of 2020)
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Underclassmen
Sophomores (Class of 2021)
Freshmen (Class of 2022)
Other Players (Class of 2023)
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Coach/President
Assistants
Other Notable People
Key (C) Captain (A) Alternate Captain | |||||||
Notable Tournament Performances
2015 IHSA State Champions, Class A
2017 IHSA State Runner-Up, Class AA (moved from Class A in 2016)
2017 Barron Robinson Memorial Champions
2017 Masonic State Runner-Up, Class AA
2017 Inaugural South Central Solo: 2nd place, 3rd place, 5th place
2018 IHSSBCA Kickoff at Mattoon Champions
2018 Piasa Bird Invitational Champions
2018 Barron Robinson Memorial Champions
2018 NAQT Illinois State Champions
2018 Masonic State Champions, Class AA
2018 Scobol Solo, 2 Finalists (Fourth Place and Sixth Place)
2018 UIUC Earlybird Runner-Up
2018 ACF Fall UIUC HS Mirror Runner-Up
2018 IHSSBCA Kickoff at Stevenson Runner-Up
National Performances
2014 HSNCT: 211th/272
2015 HSNCT: 145th/272
2016 NSC: 62nd/96
2017 NSC: 51st/96
2018 SSNCT Open Division: 5th/64
2018 HSNCT: T51st/352
2018 NASAT: 13th (Ethan Ashbrook of Illinois B)
External Links
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