Contest Results: Quartet
Going into the contest, Bob and I had dissected the list of competing quartets. We both estimated our placement at about tenth or eleventh out of twenty-three. With so many quartets competing in the Friday night semifinals, ten quartets would advance to the finals, with eleventh place serving as Saturday's mic testers. You may recall that we first achieved the mic testing spot in April. I considered it on the hairy edge that we'd get it again this time.
At the end of the Friday session, the contest administrator was announcing the singing order for the quartets who'd made it to Saturday. They started with the mic testers. Not only were we not mic testers, but the quartet that was had beat us many times in the past. D'oh! As the list of finalists went on, I kept track of the obviously-finalist-caliber quartets and the number of slots remaining. Suspense was amplified by the other quartets in the contest with F names. After the ninth quartet was announced, I realized that Foreign Agreement hadn't been named yet. There was no way Foreign Agreement hadn't made the finals, so I knew we were out of the running and said as much to Bob. "Singing tenth: Fever Pitch!" WTF!? I was thrilled that we'd made it, but completely puzzled as to how. "Singing eleventh: Foreign Agreement!" At this point, my head exploded.
Why had eleven quartets made it through? I eventually realized there'd been a tie for tenth place. We turned out to be one of those two quartets. The guys we'd tied with had started out just barely better than us a few contests ago, but they'd advanced a lot faster. Their Friday score was a fluke-their Saturday score vaulted them to sixth place overall-but it was the fluke that put us in the finals. Despite scoring .5% better with our Saturday package than we had with our Friday package, we finished in eleventh place. We're still thrilled because we managed to pull out a 62.4% overall, a new record for us and our first finish in the B category. Woo hoo!
At the end of the Friday session, the contest administrator was announcing the singing order for the quartets who'd made it to Saturday. They started with the mic testers. Not only were we not mic testers, but the quartet that was had beat us many times in the past. D'oh! As the list of finalists went on, I kept track of the obviously-finalist-caliber quartets and the number of slots remaining. Suspense was amplified by the other quartets in the contest with F names. After the ninth quartet was announced, I realized that Foreign Agreement hadn't been named yet. There was no way Foreign Agreement hadn't made the finals, so I knew we were out of the running and said as much to Bob. "Singing tenth: Fever Pitch!" WTF!? I was thrilled that we'd made it, but completely puzzled as to how. "Singing eleventh: Foreign Agreement!" At this point, my head exploded.
Why had eleven quartets made it through? I eventually realized there'd been a tie for tenth place. We turned out to be one of those two quartets. The guys we'd tied with had started out just barely better than us a few contests ago, but they'd advanced a lot faster. Their Friday score was a fluke-their Saturday score vaulted them to sixth place overall-but it was the fluke that put us in the finals. Despite scoring .5% better with our Saturday package than we had with our Friday package, we finished in eleventh place. We're still thrilled because we managed to pull out a 62.4% overall, a new record for us and our first finish in the B category. Woo hoo!