Today was the last day of the Teen Tournament semifinals. The contestants:
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| Kate Wadman |
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| Nikhil Desai (I couldn’t help but wonder if he was related to Anoop Desai.) |
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| Raynell Cooper (He looks like a Mii when he rings in. He puts his whole body into it! |
At the first break, Nikhil had 400, Raynell had 4400, and Kate had 1600. Raynell answered the first two clues after the break in Pledges and Oaths, then found the Daily Double there. He wagered 1300 of his 5000 (I’d probably have wagered a little more.) This was the clue: “The pledge written for this kids’ sporting organization ends ‘win or lose I will always do my best.'” Raynell got it right.
I was glad A Short Spell (where contestants spell the responses, which were all five letters or less) wasn’t the last category selected (but it was second-to-last). At the end of the round, Nikhil had 3400, Raynell continued to lead with 7900, and Kate had 4800.
In Double Jeopardy, four of the five clues in TV Shows by Cast were triple-stumpers for them and me, although they weren’t the same four: I got “Smallville” but missed “iCarly.” I did sweep the next category, Drama Club Tryouts, where the players named the play described in the clue.
Kate found the first Daily Double of the round, in Like a “G”6, where all the responses began with “g” and were six letters long. She had 10400, Nikhil had 7000, and Raynell had 16300. Kate risked 4500 on this clue: “The Greek for ‘milk’ gives us this word for a large feature of the skies.” She got it right.
Nikhil seemed like he was looking for the next Daily Double, but Raynell found it in Young Nobel Prize Winners. Raynell had an impressive 17900, while Nikhil had 9000, and Kate had 14900. Raynell risked 3000 on this clue: “Konstantin Novoselov, 36, shared the 2010 Physics prize for his work on graphene, a form of this element.” He got it right.
At the end of the round, then, Raynell had 20900, Nikhil had 10200, and Kate had 16100. The Final Jeopardy category was Brands. This was the clue: “Jack Odell gave his child a toy vehicle to bring to school inside one of these items, and a toy brand name was born.” Nikhil was on the right track but didn’t have enough information, and he lost 599. Raynell and Kate got it right. Raynell wagered 11305, which was enough. He will be in the two-day Final, with Kailyn Laporte and Raya Elias-Pushett. My Coryat score today was 27200. Nikhil‘s was 10200, Raynell’s was 19200, and Kate’s was 13200.