Minnesota High School Quiz Bowl League

The Minnesota High School Quizbowl League is one of the most popular quiz bowl competitions in Minnesota. It is currently run on questions supplied by NAQT, derived from one of the A series they produce each year. The league is directed by R. Robert Hentzel and takes place over multiple nights at three separate divisions, which compete at different sites. Each night, a team plays four rounds within its division. After all divisions have played 12 rounds, teams from the top 16 schools convene for a double-elimination playoff. Each school can only send one team to the championship tournament. The MNHSQB League championship tournament considered by many to be more prestigious than the official NAQT Minnesota State Championship, as it is generally has a more challenging field and is partially televised.

Divisions

List of divisions and competition dates

Format

The current format consists of two eight-minute halves of NAQT tossups and bonuses, with a pair of lightning rounds after the first half. The lightning round consists of groups of ten related questions worth ten points each. The team that is not in the lead gets the first choice of three subjects for their round, and has one minute to answer as many as they can. The other team then gets a 30 second bounce-back phase on questions the first team missed. After this, the process is repeated with the leading team choosing from the remaining two choices. 15-point powers are used in league play, but -5 interrupt penalties are not.

In previous years, MNHSQB games consisted of four "phases." The first phase consisted of twelve very short warm-up tossups. The second phase consisted of standard tossups with powers and bonuses. The first two phases were combined for timing purposes, and were 9 minutes long. The third phase was a lightning round, and the fourth was more tossups and bonuses, for 6 minutes.

Questions

Regular season play uses tossups and bonuses from NAQT's A-Series and lightning rounds from its Standard Television Series. The playoffs use questions from a regular NAQT set, which are more difficult. You can read a sample packet of A-Series questions here.

History

For many years of the pre-NAQT era, all events were held at Burnsville, so that all schools had an opportunity to appear on public television. Patrick's Press questions were used in the years preceding NAQT's involvement, and Questions Unlimited provided questions before then, in the mid-eighties. Records suggest that it was once part of a quiz show on KSTP. Very incomplete records of those years can be found here.

Since the 2006-2007 season, play has been on NAQT questions. With five titles each, Eden Prairie and Wayzata are tied for the most MNHSQB titles in the NAQT era. Wayzata also holds the record for points in a game in that era, scoring 1,035 points against Edina during round 6 of the 2017-18 season.

Past Results

Pre-NAQT era

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second
1971
2000	Patrick's Press
2001	Patrick's Press		St. Thomas Academy	Minneapolis Southwest
2002			St. Thomas Academy	results missing
2003			Chaska	results missing
2004			Chaska	results missing
2005			St. Thomas Academy	results missing
2006		88	St. Thomas Academy	results missing

NAQT era

Year	Set Used	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2007	MN-06	98	Eden Prairie	St. Anthony Village	St. Thomas Academy	Wayzata
2008	MN-07	112	Eden Prairie	Orono	Minnetonka	Wayzata
2009	MN-08	100	Chaska	Eden Prairie	St. Louis Park	Wayzata
2010	MN-09	100	Eden Prairie	St. Thomas Academy	Chaska	St. Louis Park
2011	MN-10	108	Chanhassen	St. Paul Central	Eden Prairie	Wayzata
2012	MN-11	110	Wayzata	St. Paul Central	Chaska	Mounds View
2013	MN-12	110	Wayzata	St. Paul Central	Chaska	Eden Prairie
2014	MN-13	105	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	St. Thomas Academy	Blake
2015	MN-14	130	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Blake	Edina
2016	MN-15	131	Eden Prairie	Wayzata	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2017	MN-16	139	Wayzata	St. Thomas Academy	Mounds Park Academy	Burnsville
2018	MN-17	134	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Mounds View	Edina
2019	MN-18	118	Mounds View	Wayzata	Burnsville	Eden Prairie
2020	MN-19	126	Wayzata	Eden Prairie	Mounds View	Burnsville

External Links

Current (2019-20) standings

Division	School	City	Coach(es)	# of teams
West Division 11/7, 12/12, 1/23
	Benilde-St. Margaret's	St. Louis Park	Casey Mosich	3
	Breck	Minneapolis	Brad Kohl	1
	Eden Prairie	Eden Prairie	Josh Axtman and Alex Bauer	9
	Edina	Edina	Nickie McKeever	3
	Holy Family	Victoria	Jim Walker	1
	Hopkins	Minnetonka	John Sammler	2
	Minnetonka	Minnetonka	Judith Thomas	3
	Mound Westonka	Minnetrista	Cassy Hubler	3
	Shattuck-St. Mary's	Faribault	Genevieve Andreas and Nicole Taynton	1
	St. Louis Park	St. Louis Park	Peter Dangerfield	1
	Wayzata	Plymouth	Lucas Sun	6
East Division 11/14, 12/19, 1/30
	AFSA	Vadnais Heights	Peter Zurn	1
	DeLaSalle	Minneapolis	Martin Marrin	5
	Hudson	Hudson, WI	Roberta Naujok and Joshua Przybylski	2
	Irondale	Roseville	Bryan Coyle and Anna Smithberger	5
	Mounds Park	St. Paul	Jay Noland and Wade Peterson	3
	Mounds View	Arden Hills	Justin Benolkin	4
	North St. Paul	North St. Paul	Joe Simms	3
	Pine City	Pine City	Dana Phillips	2
	Roseville	Roseville	Ira Sanders	2
	Saint Agnes	St. Paul	Jackie Cates and Jared Taggart	3
	St. Croix Prep	Stillwater	Eric Blythe and Craig Wolke	1
	St. Paul Academy	St. Paul	Kate Lockwood	2
	St. Paul Conservatory	St. Paul	None	1
	Tartan	Oakdale	Unknown	2
	Washburn	Minneapolis	Mark Jensen	2
South Division 11/21, 1/9, 2/6	Apple Valley	Apple Valley	Shawn Dylla	4
	Blake	Minneapolis	Jonathan Osters	3
	Burnsville	Burnsville	Les Moffitt	7
	Chanhassen	Chanhassen	Austin Wilder and Katy Boyum-Hill	2
	Chaska	Chaska	Tucker Besel and Naomi Jones	3
	Eagan	Eagan	Brian Poehler	2
	Eastview	Apple Valley	John Kelly	2
	Hill-Murray	Maplewood	Louise Head and Kevin Ryan	2
	Kennedy	Bloomington	Chris Lyons	3
	Metcalf Middle	Burnsville	Melinda Mallinger	1
	Orono	Long Lake	Joe Suchomel	3
	Prior Lake	Savage	Brian Olsen and Jay Clausen	10
	Providence Academy	Plymouth	Emily Semsch and Ian Skemp	3
	Rosemount	Rosemount	Chris Kauffeld	4
	Shakopee	Shakopee	Matthew Johnston	2
	St. Thomas Academy	Mendota Heights	Jamie Jurkovich	3