Here is day two of our profiles of the sixteen competitors who will face each other next weekend at the 2010 Montgomery Bell Extemp Round Robin, a second tier tournament in this year’s National Points Race that will award 150 points to the winner.
This year’s tournament is dominated by International extemporaneous speaking competitors. It also has an unusually high amount of seniors as only two extempers competing in the tournament are juniors. Texas and California have the largest contingents at the tournament with three extempers each. This is the third consecutive year at the Round Robin that Texas has either had or shared this distinction.
Key: DNA = Did Not Attend; DNC = Did Not Clear (Break); NR = Not Ranked
Steven Elliott
*School: Lakeville North HS (Lakeville, MN)
*Class: Senior
*NFL Points: 1,929
*Previous Invites to MBA: None
*National Points Race Rank: 2nd (100 pts.)
*Last Year’s National Points Race Rank: NR
*Notable Finishes This Season: 1st-Glenbrooks
*National Finishes Last Season: CFL-DNA; NFL (IX)-QF
*Notes: While his school was bound to get one bid after Karen Zhou competed last year, Elliott pushed himself into an automatic qualification by becoming the first extemper from Minnesota to win Glenbrooks since Kevin Troy in 2004…Finished second to Zhou at last year’s Minnesota state tournament in extemp…Has a CFL final round to his credit; placing sixth in 2008…Was a quarter-finalist at Harvard last year to accompany a solid quarter-final finish in International Extemp at NFL Nationals…He and Zhou have two of the four largest amounts of NFL points heading into the tournament…Will try to get Minnesota back to the Exhibition Round…Has to be considered as one of the favorites because of his Glenbrooks finish against a field that included eight of his fellow Round Robin competitors.
Tyler Fabbri
*School: Chesterton HS (Chesterton, IN)
*Class: Senior
*NFL Points: 1,593
*Previous Invites to MBA: None
*National Points Race Rank: T9th (50 pts.)
*Last Year’s National Points Race Rank: T22nd (65 pts.)
*Notable Finishes This Season: 4th-Glenbrooks
*National Finishes Last Season: CFL-SF (OO); NFL (USX)-5th
*Notes: Last year’s final round finish at NFL Nationals in U.S. Extemp helped him lock up a bid this year…Drew one of the worst questions in NFL final round history last season…Interestingly enough, was a semi-finalists in original oratory at CFL Nationals last season…Is the first extemper from Chesterton High School to earn a Round Robin bid…As with the Glenbrooks final, he and Jacob Baker are the only national finalists from last year in the field…Assuming he does United States Extemp at NFL Nationals this year a matchup to look at closely in the Round Robin is with Oscar Wang, who is the only semi-finalist in U.S. Extemp in this year’s tournament…Is only the third extemper from Indiana to earn a bid into the tournament and the first since Larissa Atkinson of Plymouth High School earned one in 2006.
Mirza Germovic
*School: Des Moines Roosevelt HS (Des Moines, IA)
*Class: Senior
*NFL Points: 1,760
*Previous Invites to MBA: None
*National Points Race Rank: 12th (47 pts.)
*Last Year’s National Points Race Rank: NR
*Notable Finishes This Season: 3rd-St. Marks USX; 4th-George Mason; SF-St. Marks IX; QF-Glenbrooks
*National Finishes Last Season: CFL-DNA; NFL (USX)-DNC
*Notes: One of the few competitors to have earned National Points Race points at multiple tournaments this season…Despite a disappointing NFL Nationals he was able to build a resume into this tournament by breaking at multiple national circuit tournaments and getting into the George Mason final…George Mason finish likely moved him off the bubble and into the field…Is the defending Iowa state champion in United States extemporaneous speaking…The second extemper from Des Moines Roosevelt High School to earn a bid to the Round Robin…Strong finish would position him to make a run at the National Points Race because of the likelyhood of him attending a few more national circuit tournaments in the second half of the season.
Anna Gunderson
*School: Desert Vista HS (Phoenix, AZ)
*Class: Senior
*NFL Points: 1,118
*Previous Invites to MBA: None
*National Points Race Rank: T4th (70 pts.)
*Last Year’s National Points Race Rank: NR
*Notable Finishes This Season: 3rd-Glenbrooks
*National Finishes Last Season: CFL-DNA; NFL (USX)-OF
*Notes: Top three finish at Glenbrooks was the reason for her bid…One of the few extempers in the field who did United States extemp at last year’s NFL National tournament…The second extemper from Desert Vista HS to earn a bid to the Round Robin and fourth Arizona extemper to attend the tournament…Due to her placing in the National Points Race and depending on how her competiton does, a win might vault her into first place in the National Points Race…One of the more interesting competitors in this year’s field because outside of her Glenbrooks finish there is not much to go off of to make a prognostication.
You are incorrect about Fabbri being the second extemper from Indiana to compete at MBA. In, I believe, 2006 Larissa Atkinson from Plymouth HS competed, but she did not make the exhibition.
You are correct. The results used to evaluate competitors listed Atkinson as being from Ohio and as a result was not used in the calculations. Thanks for pointing out the error.
But I will agree about the whole worst question ever thing. When I read this I fell out of my chair laughing.