Category: National Points Race Page 6 of 7

The standings for the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race and the National Team Points Race are now updated.  Check them out to see what impact the finalists at the Barkley Forum had on their individual placings in this year’s points race and if the team points race has seen any significant shakeup.

You can access the current standings in this year’s National Points Race by clicking on the National Points Race tab on the top, far right of the webpage or by clicking here.

Also, don’t forget that this weekend is the end of the regular season on the national circuit with the Harvard Invitational, a third tier tournament, and the California Invitational taking place at Berkeley.  Good luck to those competitors that are competing this weekend.

The newest standings for the 2009-2010 National Points Race and National Team Points Race have been posted.  After the MBA Extemp Round Robin, Dillon Huff of Southlake Carroll High School in Texas has expanded his lead in the National Points Race.  Huff’s victory has also enabled Southlake to take over the #1 spot in the National Team Points Race.  MBA was the sole second tier tournament on this year’s tournament schedule.

Barkley Forum will be the next National Points Race tournament.  It is a fourth tier tournament and will award 70 points to the winner.  It will be held in two weeks in Atlanta, Georgia and many of the top extempers in the National Points Race are expected to be there.

To check out the updated National Points Race standings click on the National Points Race tab on the webpage or click here.

The standings for the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race have been updated.  Not surprisingly, Dillon Huff of Southlake Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas has taken the lead for the first time this season in the National Points Race after his victory last weekend at the George Mason University Patriot Games.  Due to his victory, which awarded him 70 points, Huff has established a mere ten point lead over Glenbrooks winner Steven Elliott of Lakeville North High School in Lakeville, Minnesota.

In the team points race, San Marino High School in San Marino, California has jumped seven spots in the standings and into first place thanks to the efforts of Oscar Wang who placed second at George Mason University to complement the efforts of teammate Nabeel Zewail who placed second at the Yale University Invitational earlier in the season.

To look at the top 15 in the current National Points Race and top 15 in the National Team Points Race click on the National Points Race tab on the top of this page or you can click here.

The 2009-2010 National Points Race and National Team Points Race standings have been updated after the Glenbrooks tournament that was held last weekend in Illinois.  Click on the National Points Race tab on the top of the webpage in order to find out who has moved up and who has moved down in the latest rankings.

Also, don’t forget that the George Mason University Patriot Games is this coming weekend which will be the last opportunity for extempers to earn points for the first semester.  Good luck to those competing in Fairfax next week!

by Logan Scisco

Just like last year, the Extemp Central National Points Race is close heading into the Glenbrooks this weekend.  No extemper has managed to gain points at more than one of the first three tournaments that count for points in the season:  Wake Forest, Yale, and St. Mark’s.  Similarly, the National Teams Points Race is close going into Glenbrooks thanks to several teams gaining multiple finalists at the first three major national circuit tournaments of the year.

The Glenbrooks should serve to shake out the rankings better prior to the George Mason University Patriot Games tournament which will be the last tournament that will count for points in the National Points Race for the first semester.  The Glenbrooks will award 100 points to the winner since it is a third tier tournament and with many recognized names attending someone could break away from the field by the end of next weekend.  Similarly, if someone who is not ranked wins Glenbrooks and most of the top half of the current National Points Race field fails to find, we could end up with some very jumbled standings heading into George Mason and the Montgomery Bell Academy Extemp Round Robin in two months.

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The individual and team standings for the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points race have been updated after the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational.  You can access them by clicking on the National Points Race tab at the top of this page.  Find out where Dillon Huff, the winner of both halves of the tournament and last year’s third place finisher in the National Points Race is making his debut in this year’s standings.  Also, see where Plano Senior High School of Plano, Texas is in the National Team Points Race after racking up 75 points at St. Mark’s.

Don’t forget that the next big tournament, the Glenbrooks, is a third tier tournament worth 100 points.  It could alter this year’s National Points Race standings to a significant degree.

The new 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race and National Teams Points Race standings have been updated.  To access them, click on the “Nat’l Points Race” tab at the top of the page. 

We have a new leader in the standings:  Aaron Lutkowitz of Montgomery Bell Academy in Tennessee, fresh off of his victory at Yale.  Lutkowitz has also powered MBA into the top spot in the team points race.  From all indications, he plans to attend St. Mark’s so he will be looking to add to his lead at that tournament.

The next major tournament in the National Points Race:  The St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational.  It will be a fifth tier tournament, awarding 40 points to the best performing extemper in the U.S. and IX portions combined.

Extemp Central is proud to start the second official year of the Extemp Central National Points Race,  a competition that awards competitors who have succeeded prestigious tournaments throughout the year.  Unlike last year, the National Points Race standings will be updated shortly after one of the tournaments in the standings takes place.  The role of The Ex Files will be to provide a detailed summary of changes in the standings and will present other data such as wins, top three finishes, and the number of final rounds for competitors. 

The first standings for this year’s Extemp Central National Points Race and Extemp Central National Team Points Race have been released!  Click here to check out who’s where after the Wake Forest National Early Bird!

by Logan Scisco

Last month, Extemp Central gradually revealed the tournaments that would make up this year’s National Points Race.  The only shakeup for tournaments was the decision to exclude the University of Pennsylvania’s Liberty Bell Classic from the National Points Race this season.  The reasoning behind this was that the Liberty Bell Classic will run opposite of the California Invitational at Berkeley and the Harvard Invitational this season so its level of participation is in question.

Extempers also noticed when the tournaments were rolled out that the tier structure has been changed.  Unlike last year, which featured only three tiers of tournaments, this year’s National Points Race will feature five tiers of competition.  One of the criticisms that was mentioned about last year’s National Points Race are that smaller, more regional tournaments like the Wake Forest National Early Bird, the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational, and the California Invitational were worth the same amount of points as larger, more recognized tournaments like the Glenbrooks and Harvard.  To reward extempers for their performance among larger fields, the tiers have been expanded so that the National Points Race can recognize the nation’s best extemper across a broad field of tournaments.

Last year was the first official year of the National Points Race, with Stacey Chen of North Allegheny Senior High School in Pennsylvania claiming the individual championship and claiming the National Team Points Race championship for her school.  A picture of the trophies can be found at this website.  If you count Becca Goldstein’s unofficial victory in 2008, when the points were used to give a snapshot of how the 2007-2008 season would have worked out, women have won the last two National Points Race titles.  So this year will be interesting to see if any male extempers step up and wrest away the championship.

The only question that was not answered from last month’s rollout of the tournaments is how many points they were going to be worth.  This is the question that this article will answer.  The points system is set up to reward victories at major events, but also to reward top three finishes.  During the season, even if there are defects, the points scale will not be changed.  This is meant to provide fairness and uniformity to the season’s rankings.  By the next edition of The Ex Files, which will be released prior to the Glenbrooks, three tournaments in the National Points Race will have been completed.  Come back to Extemp Central after the Wake Forest National Early Bird, the Yale University Invitational, and St. Mark’s to find out what is going on in the National Points Race standings.

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Pre-season rankings, whether we apply them to forensics or professional sports are very unreliable. Simply because someone had a great season the year before does not always foreshadow a great season the next year and competitors who are not yet nationally known are honing their skills during the off-season. However, because pre-season rankings are usually asked of any forensics site, Extemp Central has decided to give a top ten listing of extempers to watch for the 2009-2010 season.

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Any rankings system has to have its “premier” tournaments that can be used to evaluate talent. Last year, when the system had three tiers, CFL and NFL Nationals made up the first tier of the National Points Race system. However, this year there is a shakeup near the top, as yesterday it was revealed that CFL Nationals would be a third tier tournament. The first and second tiers will only include one tournament apiece, meant to add greater emphasis to those two events. Today, Extemp Central reveals the two tournaments that have been selected for those tiers to finish up our unveiling of the tournaments that will be part of this year’s National Points Race.

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The middle tier of this year’s National Points Race is the biggest part of the ranking system, being composed of four tournaments. The first tournaments were selected based on their prestige as “major” events that take place during the first and second semester of the year, while the other two tournaments are tournaments that have fallen in their tier ranking from last year.

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Today, Extemp Central releases the names of tournaments that have been selected for the fourth tier of the 2009-2010 National Points Race. The criteria in selecting these three tournaments for this tier is that they had more participation or higher quality fields than tournaments in the fifth tier, but lacked the prestige and/or the extremely wide participation of tournaments in the third tier.

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As was revealed yesterday, the 2009-2010 Extemp Central National Points Race will see some adjustments. The major adjustment is that there will be five tiers of tournaments as opposed to three. Extemp Central begins to release the tournaments that have been selected for this year’s points race today by detailing the three tournaments that will make up the fifth tier (lowest tier) of the points race.

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