In a Young Life College first, Tuesday’s Trivia Night almost ended with a tie!

This was a great upset to the 11 teams in play, as there was no contingency plan in place to declare a winner in the event of a tie. Many of the night’s questions followed political topics, such as the life of President Barack Obama and Alexander Hamilton, due to the popularity of the Broadway Musical “Hamilton.”

In keeping with the theme of politics, the participants demanded of their leaders they vote for the winner.

The demand for democracy was shut down, but all in fun to ensure trivia night was still focused on trivia. The teams were still disappointed. There were a few scattered participants singing patriotic songs, such as “The Preamble” from “School House Rock” and “The Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, all in the fun spirit of encouraging democracy.

The Young Life leadership team eventually decided the winner would be decided by a sudden-death round of questioning. After one question, the winner was declared to be team James Harden’s Defense.

The team is made of returning champions Clayton Curry, Alec Marshall, John Muncy and new member Hunter Barclay.

“Hunter and I are the stowaways that somehow ended up on this team,” Muncy said.

According to teammates Marshall and Curry, this is the team’s overall third win. They have been a part of the team for close to four semesters in total.

Not only did the four become friends because of their involvement in Young Life, Curry and Barclay are both Yeager scholars, and, along with Muncy, share a suite in the honors dorm. Curry and Marshall have been friends for years.

“It’s just friendship, you know,” Marshall said.

The James Harden’s Defense team was in very mixed confidence about their win before the game started.

“We had high expectations to win, but it’s still nerve wracking,” Curry said.

The nerves grew even worse when the first round of questioning was about sitcoms, such as “Parks and Recreation” and “Modern Family,” and none of the team members watch sitcoms.

“We got one of those on a guess,” Marshall said. “It was just because ‘Modern Family’ is so popular and is the only one that everybody talks about that hadn’t been used.”

Despite the rocky start, James Harden’s Defense prevailed and won the night with 97 points. While this may be a personal low for the team, according to Marshall and Curry, it was enough to lead them to their third Young Life College Trivia Night Victory.

Karenann Flouhouse can be contacted at [email protected]