Earlybird

The Earlybird is a high school tournament hosted by Illinois. In its history, it has been a house-write, used HSAPQ questions, and used questions from the second edition of DAFT. According to the best records available, it started in 2002, skipped a year, and then became an annual event. It often occurs in October, though the 2002 event was held November 3.

Illinois hosted a fall tournament in 1995 directed by Martin Stroup. MacArthur defeated Quincy for the Championship, and Latin defeated Niantic-Harristown for Third Place. However, that tournament is more of a forerunner of the IHSSBCA Kickoff than Earlybird.

In addition to the Earlybird hosted by the Illinois Academic Buzzer Team, an honors group called the Phi Scholars used to host a tournament on campus. Earlybird has generally followed mACF format, while Phi Scholars followed IHSA format.

Results

Year	# of Teams	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2002	8	Detroit Catholic Central	Benton (AR)	Loyola	Fairfield
2004	8	Loyola A	Apollo (KY)	MacArthur	Culver Academies
2005	13	Auburn A	Apollo	Bloomington	Loyola A
2006	15	Carbondale	Maine South	Bloomington A	New Trier
2007	9	Detroit Catholic Central A	North Kansas City	New Trier	Auburn
2008	16	New Trier	Auburn A	Carbondale A	Loyola A
2009	14	Loyola A	Detroit Catholic Central A	Carbondale	Detroit Catholic Central B
2010	18	Stevenson A	Detroit Catholic Central A	Loyola A	Detroit Catholic Central B