The win came as somewhat of a surprise. The Regional consisted of four matches with four different teams, each match with a different set of questions and cases. At the end of each match, the teams received their scores. The IU Bloomington team won their first two matches, but the results for the third match showed that IU lost. The tally going into the awards ceremony appeared to be three wins and one loss.
The third- and second-place teams were announced, each with three wins and one loss. Neither was IU. The announcer then turned to reveal the first-place team, who had zero losses. To the surprise and shock of everyone involved in the third match, IU Bloomington was announced as the winner. It turned out, upon further inspection of the results, that one of the judges had added his scores wrongly and IU had won the match! With an undefeated track record at the Regional, IU Bloomington took first place, beating other strong teams who regularly made it to the top three.
As coach Elizabeth Williams emphasized, the point of the Ethics Bowl wasn’t to win, it was to challenge students to think more deeply about complex ethical issues and improve their critical thinking and public speaking skills. But, it was nice to have that hard work recognized.
Best of luck to this year’s Ethics Bowl team!