Jefferson Academic Team heading to the 2015 Nationals
There seems to be three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and the Jefferson Academic team qualifying for nationals. For the 5th straight year, the Jefferson Academic Team has qualified for the Community College Championship Tournament to be held in Atlanta on February 27th and 28th. Jefferson A won the Kentucky Sectional recently held on the Southwest Campus to earn the bid, while Jefferson B landed just outside the initial bid list, but still hopeful for an at large bid.
Jefferson will again be among the 24 best teams in the country in Atlanta, including three straight top 5 finishes at Nationals. We were one win away from playing for the Championship last year, and I've got a good core of players back this year. said Coach Pete Rodski, a math professor on the southwest campus. But this field is really, really strong. There are probably 8-12 teams with a legitimate shot at a national championship. Last year the 24th place team had a D-value of 137. This year it is 195, a significant increase. There will be no easy matches this year.
Jefferson currently ranks 4th overall in D-value (306), but has the 2nd highest point per bonus average in the country (trailing only State College Manatee), and ranks 2nd behind Valencia on total points per tossup heard. Jefferson ranks first nationally in bonuses heard per tossup heard, another good indicator of team strength. We are in a unique position here at Jefferson. We are the only Kentucky Community College competing at the national level, while Florida had 22 colleges competing last weekend. So this year we traveled a lot in addition to league matches we went to open tournaments at places like Ohio State which I think will help us in the long run by playing quality competition like Michigan State and Notre Dame.
Jefferson had 14 students compete in the Kentucky Sectional. Out of 64 colleges competing, the A team ranked 4th, B team 22nd, C team 36th, and the D team a very respectable 54th. Eric Bradley took the Kentucky Sectional scoring title with 65.8 points per game, followed by Marion Eicholtz at 34.1 ppg. Katie Edwards (32.32) was 3rd, Anthony Myers (30.82) 4th, Will Edwards (29.7) 5th, Paul Roederer (27.06) 6th, and Launi Brown (21.82) 7th. Also playing well for Jefferson were James Mitchell, Joseph Moffett, Jordan Woosley, Josh Case, Kimberly Cissell, Bo Terkelson, Parker Jones and Charles Arnold. Everybody from Jefferson scored, including 4 of my players who had never played a tournament before which was great said Rodski.
The team is coached by Pete Rodski, Amy Sprinkle, and Liz Boyd, and is open to any student without a degree. Quiz bowl questions range over the entire spectrum of a community college curriculum, and also include a certain amount of current events, sports, and pop culture.
