Due to some technical difficulties we were unable to post round 8 pairings when they went up. However, these were the pairings for round 8. In an interesting sidenote, the traditional “MBA line graph” has shown that many extempers are starting to flatline in their placing, with fewer fluctuations than over the first several rounds of the tournament. Also, the graph shows that five extempers have been in first place during the tournament.
Extempers draw for round 9 at 9:10 a.m. CST on Sunday. Sunday will have the last two rounds of competition and the Exhibition Round. Exhibition Round participants are scheduled to be released at 1:35 p.m. CST and it will be announced ASAP here at Extemp Central.
For these pairings, each extempers National Points Race rank is identified within parenthesis to the left of their name.
The topic area for this round was Africa & the Middle East.
Section One:
Judges: Diane Forbes, Harry Strong, and Steve Meadows
1. (T15) Rohan Bhargava (Jackson High School, Ohio)
2. (T4) Aaron Lutkowitz (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
3. (NR) Jane Kessner (Walt Whitman High School, Maryland)
4. (2) Steven Elliott (Lakeville North High School, Minnesota)
Section Two:
Judges: Steve Moss, Victor Silva, and Jason Warren
1. (1) Dillon Huff (Southlake Carroll High School, Texas)
2. (NR) Gabriela Barahona (Spring High School, Texas)
3. (T9) James Mohan (Danville High School, Kentucky)
4. (6) Jared Odessky (Nova High School, Florida)
Section Three:
Judges: Liz Vieira, Logan Scisco, and CarlyAnne Barnes
1. (T4) Anna Gunderson (Desert Vista High School, Arizona)
2. (12) Mirza Germovic (Des Moines Roosevelt High School, Iowa)
3. (T17) Shahid Ahmed (Plano Senior High School, Texas)
4. (T7) Oscar Wang (San Marino High School, California)
Section Four:
Judges: Hunter Kendrick, Lisa Miller, and Cheryl Potts
1. (NR) Karen Zhou (Lakeville North High School, Minnesota)
2. (T9) Tyler Fabbri (Chesterton High School, Indiana)
3. (T7) Nabeel Zewail (San Marino High School, California)
4. (3) Jacob Baker (Bellarmine College Prep, California)