From Bay Scallop Organizer John Mak:
The 2016 Bay Scallop Bowl had quite the interesting final rounds of the competition. Midwood High School finished at the top of their bracket (the loss bracket), setting up a match against the undefeated Mt Sinai team. Midwood needed to beat Mt. Sinai to force a final round. Well, they did, which led to a final rematch between the two teams. Mount Sinai was in the lead after the team challenge questions, but Midwood came back with two correct answers (with bonus rounds), and they convincingly secured the win. For the first time, and after many years of participating, Midwood High School is the Bay Scallop Bowl Champion. They will compete in the National competition in Morehead City in April. Just as interesting, Stuyvesant High School, a first time participant from Manhattan, defeated Locust Valley to finish in third place.
I want to thank all the volunteers for showing up at some ungodly hour and putting in a solid day’s work. Every single person played an important role.
A special thanks for the endurance of all the volunteers who stuck it out all day! Amanda Holloway, who was visiting from the National Office, filled in as rules judge in the finals as well as throughout the day. Amanda was like having a walking Book of Bowl Knowledge, which was great for me especially, since I had never done this.
After the single elimination round, more than thirty of the team members made fish print tshirts, as well as some of our volunteers, and I want to thank Anne McElroy and Alicia Mullaley for taking the lead in this activity. More than 50 tshirts were made! Also thanks to my former lab tech, student, and SoMAS alum Tracey Evans, and my current undergraduate lab assistant Alexis Scida for making a huge mess with the liquid nitrogen ice cream! I think everyone enjoyed that treat, and nobody got burned!
Post competition, we still have alot of packing up and cleaning up to do. After a 12 hour day, Mala, Emily, Alicia Mullaley, Amanda, and Andrew Matthews (SoMAS alum) all helped pack up the competition rooms, the cafeteria, the art room, and load the SoMAS van.
I want to thank Amanda Holloway, from the National Ocean Science Bowl office in DC, who arrived friday, helped us set up, covered the positions throughout the day of competition that we needed to cover (this was really key), and helped us break everything down. Having Amanda here friday and saturday was like a turbo boost in the final lap, and certainly made my day much easier. Amanda was truly a greatly appreciated reinforcement.
I do think this event is greatly appreciated by the 16 teams and their supporters. Although it was held at Mount Sinai middle school for the first time, the Bay Scallop Bowl is, and for more than 15 years has been, a signature SoMAS event.
Photos by Joe Dlhopolsky available on Google Photos.