Ties for sixth in its first appearance at the prestigious early-season tournament
November 25, 2005 - Team 972 traveled south this past weekend to participate in the Blues City Challenge invitational tournament, hosted by Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. By far the country's most exclusive invitational tournament, Rhodes typically extends its first invites only to those teams who finished in the top ten in their division at the National Championship Tournament the year before. Team 972's 7-1 performance at the 2005 Championship Tournament earned UVa its first invite to Rhodes in program history.
UVa faced tough competition from the University of Tennessee, Rhodes College, NYU, and, in a long-anticipated match-up, Georgia Tech. Team 972's first round (against Georgia Tech) pitted the top two finishers in the Main Division of the 2005 National Championship Tournament against one another. At Des Moines, both teams went 7-1-0 having never faced each other, and Georgia Tech won the tiebreaker that catapulted it into the Championship Round against UCLA. At Rhodes, UVa took both ballots from its onetime Main Division rival (+16, +8).
After an excellent round against NYU that resulted in a +11, -1 split, UVa faced tough competition from the ultimate tournament champion, Rhodes College, and from the University of Tennessee.
Always competitive, Rhodes lived up to its reputation. After a five-way tiebreak at 5-3 and a four-way tie-break at 6-2, team 972 (5-3-0) emerged tied for sixth place and earning eighth place honors. Samantha Bateman took home an outstanding attorney award.
Team 972 looks forward to January, when it travels to Los Angeles for the first west-coast tournament in UVa mock trial history. Just a week later, team 972 will be bracing itself for a major climate change when it travels to New York City for the 2006 Columbia Big Apple Invitational. smrtovnice