Championship Match

The participants in the Championship Match are the one player who won all seven preliminary matches (the Morning Champion), the seven players who won exactly six of their preliminary matches, and the (one) player who had the highest points per tossup heard among those who won exactly five of their preliminary matches.

Unlike in the preliminary rounds, all incorrect answers result in a deduction of 1 point. This is true regardless of whether the incorrect answer interrupted the question; it is thus different from ordinary “negs”.

Each player starts with 3 points. A player whose score reaches 0 is immediately removed from the match.

If any player reaches a score of 10 during the first 20 tossups, they sit out until tossup 21.

The Morning Champion sits out for the first 20 tossups, and enters at tossup 21 with a score equal to that of the leader at that time. After tossup 40, the lowest-scoring players are removed until four remain; if necessary, tiebreaker tossups are used, but they do not count in the overall score of the championship match. After tossup 50, the lowest-scoring remaining players are eliminated until two remain; the tiebreaker procedure is the same as before. At the conclusion of the match, tiebreaker tossups are read if and as necessary.

  Cole Timmerwilke Nolan Liu Evan Pandya Alston Boyd Mahir Morshed Dan Pechi Andrew Salij Sunny Chen James Zhou
  Auburn (Rockford) Saint Joseph (South Bend, Indiana) Auburn (Rockford) Bloomington Carbondale IMSA (Aurora) IMSA Hinsdale Central Hinsdale Central Answer
Initial scores   3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3  
1               1   methylation
2             1     Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
3       1           Roger Taney
4       1           John B. Watson
5     1             Federico Fellini
6         1         density
7     −1             Alban Berg
8   1       −1       Honoré de Balzac
9           1     −1 Malawi
10           1       “Thanatopsis”
11               1   Navajo code talkers
12     −1 1         −1 sulfate ion
13     −1 1           Jonathan Franzen
14             1     Markov processes
15         1         Namibia
16       1           Shylock
17         1   −1     al-Aqsa
18   1               House of Orange-Nassau
19     1             rings (chemistry)
20               1   Andrew Cuomo
Scores through 20 8 5 2 8 6 4 4 6 1  
  Cole Timmerwilke, as Morning Champion, entered the game with a score equal to that of the then-leader, Alston Boyd: 10.
21 −1   −1 −1           confidence intervals
22             1 −1   raid on Entebbe
23                 1 Three Sisters
24 −1     −1           Export-Import Bank
25 1                 Catullus
26     1             Rafael Trujillo
27   −1         1     “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”
28         −1     1   polarization
29     1             The Milkmaid
30     1             bioluminescence
31     1             Henry S. Moore
32               1   monosaccharides
33 −1         1       Tasmania
34 −1     −1     −1 −1   Léon Blum
35                 1 Tess of the D’Urbervilles
36     1             W. E. B  Du Bois
37   1               Sigurd
38                 1 violin concerti
39 1                 seafloor spreading
40 1                 just war
Scores through 40 7 5 6 5 5 5 5 6 4  
  A tiebreaker was held to determine which one of the five players tied with 5 points would—along with Cole, Evan, and Sunny—continue to the next phase. Mahir answered the first tiebreaker correctly to secure the advancing spot.
41 1                 Thailand
42 1                 Castile
43     1             To the Lighthouse
44         1         solvation
45 −1             1   Akbar the Great
46 1                 Rhine River
47 1                 Gustave Courbet
48 1                 dark matter
49     1             The House of the Spirits
50     1             Sergei Prokofiev
Scores through 50 11 eliminated 9 eliminated 6 eliminated eliminated 7 eliminated  
  By virtue of having the lowest and second-lowest score among remaining players, Mahir and Sunny were eliminated.
This is the first time ever that the top two players at Scobol Solo have been from the same school.
51     1             The Sound and the Fury
52 1                 keratin
53 1                 Harpies
54 1                 The Mikado
55 −1                 countability
56 1                 Battle of Bosworth Field
57 1                 David Hume
58     1             transformers
59 1                 Tammany Hall
60     1             Les Fleurs du Mal
Final scores 16 eliminated 12 eliminated eliminated eliminated eliminated eliminated eliminated  

Cole Timmerwilke of Auburn High School in Rockford is the champion of the 2014 Scobol Solo.

This is the first time since 2008 that the Morning Champion has also been the overall champion. (The player in 2008 was Siva Sundaram, also of Auburn.)

Cole is the third Auburn player to win Scobol Solo; in addition to Siva, Lloyd Sy won in both 2009 and 2011.

Auburn is the only high school to have had three winning players or four wins. New Trier (Winnetka) and Wheaton North have each fielded two winners (Matt Keenan, 2002, and Carlo Angiuli, 2007; and Paul Gauthier, 2003, and Greg Gauthier, 2007, respectively), and no other school has fielded more than one.