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The 2009 Illinois High School Association (IHSA) State Championship Tournaments ended the twenty-third State Championship Series conducted in Scholastic Bowl by the IHSA. It was the eighteenth season in which there were separate State Championship Tournaments held for small schools (Class A) and large schools (Class AA). For the thirteenth year, both tournaments were held at the Peoria Civic Center. The tournaments were held on Friday, March 20, 2009.
The tournament was managed by John Rathbun, and equipment furnished by Buzzersystems.com.
Advancement
Teams were assigned to one of eight sectionals within each class. Coaches then seeded the top 8 teams in their sectional. The IHSA then assigned the seeded teams to one of four regionals (1 with 8, 2 with 7, etc), with the remainder of the teams assigned to a regional geographically. The winners of the regionals would advance to their respective sectional tournaments, where they would play a three match round robin to determine a winner. The determination of the geographic boundaries of the Sectional was arbitrarily decided by the IHSA Office.
Tournament Format
Each round was comprised of 30 toss-ups and accompanying bonus questions.
In the State Championship Tournament, teams would be randomly assigned to pools of four, and play a three match round robin. The winners of each pool would advance to the Championship Match, and the runners-up in each pool would advance to play for third place. Ties were broken by head-to-head results or total points scored among tied teams (in the event of a three-way tie).
The top four teams earned trophies and medals for team members, coaches, principals, and activities directors.
CLASS A
POOL #1
Litchfield finished 3-0 to advance to the Finals, Warrensburg-Latham finished 2-1 and advanced to the Consolation Match, Morrison went 1-2, and Altamont went 0-3.
POOL #2
Latin School finished 3-0 to advance to the Finals, Peoria Christian finished 2-1 and advanced to the Consolation Match, Macomb went 1-2, and Columbia went 0-3.
Third Place
Finals
CLASS AA
POOL #1
Auburn swept through their pool with a 3-0 record. Stevenson finished 2-1, Hinsdale South ended at 1-2, and Homewood-Flossmoor finished 0-3.
POOL #2
Carbondale swept through their pool with a 3-0 record. Loyola Academy went 2-1 to advance to the third place match.
Third Place
Finals
Notes
- This was Latin's 7th state title.
- For the second year in a row the state title in Class AA went to a school outside of the Chicago area.
- It marked the first time since 1987 when both finalists in the class AA or open final were both from outside the Chicago area.
- Carbondale won the Masonic and IHSA State Championships while Auburn won NAQT.
- Auburn's fans were there in force, but again fan support beyond Auburn was minimal.
- It was Auburn's eighth consecutive trip to the SCT, and its eighth consecutive year placing in the top 4. Latin also saw its streak of top 4 finishes reach 8. Both schools tied the state record for this accomplishment (with Wheaton North).
- Questions were better received than the previous years, and the question difficulty did not seem to "ramp up" as the tournament moved to the later rounds. Scores were generally higher than the previous year.
- In some areas, questions were generally disapproved of because a of a lack of literature and an emphasis on grammar and spelling. Beyond that, there were particular questions that caused general uproar. Overall, there was improvement of the questions from Regionals through the State Tournament.
- This became known as "The Year of Illinois Government and Geography". Most notably in the Regional Tournaments, there was a marked increase in the number of questions that deal with non-Chicago Illinois government and geography. This met with general disapproval among some of the better teams.
- There were no Driver's Ed questions in SCT, though there were a few in the Regional and Sectional games.
- Latin's championship was the first year since 2005 that a team won the state championship without an All-State player on its roster. Latin did it in 2005. The only other teams to do it are IMSA, and Warrensburg-Latham in 2002.
- Latin, Auburn, Litchfield, Stevenson, Loyola, Homewood-Flossmoor, and Springfield, all made return trips to the SCT. Noticeably absent was the Hawaiian shirted team from Wheaton North. It marked the first time ever (since 2001 when Regional play began) that Wheaton North did not win a Regional title. It was the first SCT since 1998 that did not feature the Falcons.
- Loyola Academy finished in the top 4 for the first time.