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.
| Ali Saeed | Michael Gislason | John Waldron | Cole Timmerwilke | Jonathan Suh | Ankush Bajaj | Ethan Strombeck | Matthew Lehmann | Jakob Myers | Answer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stevenson (Lincolnshire) | Homewood-Flossmoor | Barrington | Auburn (Rockford) | Wheaton Warrenville South | Hinsdale Central | Auburn | Barrington | Naperville North | ||
| Initial scores | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | ||
| 1 | 1 | Tiberius | ||||||||
| 2 | 1 | Troilus and Cressida | ||||||||
| 3 | 1 | John Rawls | ||||||||
| 4 | 1 | power set | ||||||||
| 5 | 1 | Pontiac | ||||||||
| 6 | 1 | Hungarian Dances | ||||||||
| 7 | 1 | John Dos Passos | ||||||||
| 8 | −1 | −1 | −1 | 1 | carboxylic acids | |||||
| 9 | −1 | 1 | U.S. Army (current events) | |||||||
| 10 | 1 | “I Got Rhythm” | ||||||||
| 11 | 1 | Mikhail Lermontov | ||||||||
| 12 | 1 | Very Large Array | ||||||||
| 13 | 1 | Trinidad and Tobago | ||||||||
| 14 | 1 | −1 | Fatimid dynasty | |||||||
| 15 | John Ashbery | |||||||||
| 16 | 1 | reverberation | ||||||||
| 17 | 1 | The Death of Sardanapalus | ||||||||
| 18 | −1 | Ralph Bunche | ||||||||
| 19 | 1 | Calydonian boar | ||||||||
| 20 | 1 | aquaporins | ||||||||
| Scores through 20 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 6 | ||
| Ali Saeed, as Morning Champion, entered the game with a score equal to that of the then-leader, Matthew Lehmann: 7. | ||||||||||
| 21 | 1 | geomagnetic reversal | ||||||||
| 22 | 1 | Burkina Faso | ||||||||
| 23 | −1 | Vincenzo Bellini | ||||||||
| 24 | 1 | Battle of Gaugamela | ||||||||
| 25 | 1 | Menander | ||||||||
| 26 | −1 | −1 | Peter Debye | |||||||
| 27 | 1 | Nicolas Poussin | ||||||||
| 28 | 1 | Interstate Commerce Commission | ||||||||
| 29 | 1 | ahimsa | ||||||||
| 30 | −1 | 1 | N. Scott Momaday | |||||||
| 31 | 1 | synovial bursae | ||||||||
| 32 | −1 | 1 | −1 | Cardinal Wolsey | ||||||
| 33 | 1 | −1 | Hyderabad | |||||||
| 34 | 1 | Christina Rossetti | ||||||||
| 35 | −1 | −1 | conjugated molecules | |||||||
| 36 | 1 | Gabriel Fauré | ||||||||
| 37 | 1 | Antonio Gramsci | ||||||||
| 38 | 1 | −1 | Far from the Madding Crowd | |||||||
| 39 | 1 | Mersenne primes | ||||||||
| 40 | 1 | Túpac Amaru | ||||||||
| Scores through 40 | 7 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 7 | |
| The five players with the lowest scores were eliminated: Michael Gislason, John Waldron, Jonathan Suh, Ankush Bajaj, and Ethan Strombeck. Thus, Ali Saeed, Cole Timmerwilke, Matthew Lehmann, and Jakob Myers remained in the game. | ||||||||||
| 41 | 1 | Ernst Mach | ||||||||
| 42 | 1 | the Directory | ||||||||
| 43 | Sons and Lovers | |||||||||
| 44 | 1 | Mammoth Cave | ||||||||
| 45 | 1 | Anton Bruckner | ||||||||
| 46 | 1 | J. Willard Gibbs | ||||||||
| 47 | 1 | Death Comes for the Archbishop | ||||||||
| 48 | 1 | elasticity (economics) | ||||||||
| 49 | 1 | Battle of Tours | ||||||||
| 50 | 1 | fluorescence | ||||||||
| Scores through 50 | 9 | eliminated | eliminated | 13 | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | 9 | 8 | |
| As Ali Saeed and Matthew Lehmann were tied, a tiebreaker was held to determine which would remain in the game. Ali won the tiebreaker, so Matthew was eliminated. Jakob Myers was also eliminated. Ali and Cole Timmerwilke thus remained in the game. | ||||||||||
| 51 | 1 | Ezra Pound | ||||||||
| 52 | 1 | St. Basil’s Cathedral | ||||||||
| 53 | 1 | −1 | Yellow Turban Rebellion | |||||||
| 54 | 1 | Pentecost | ||||||||
| 55 | 1 | transposons | ||||||||
| 56 | 1 | Oe Kenzaburo | ||||||||
| 57 | 1 | Massacio | ||||||||
| 58 | 1 | Free Soil Party | ||||||||
| 59 | −1 | United Airlines (current events) | ||||||||
| 60 | −1 | eigenvalues | ||||||||
| Final scores | 14 | eliminated | eliminated | 13 | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | |
Ali Saeed of Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire is the champion of the 2015 Scobol Solo.
This is the second consecutive year in which the Morning Champion has also been the overall champion. (2014: Cole Timmerwilke of Auburn in Rockford.) Before that, this had not happened since 2008 (Siva Sundaram, also of Auburn.)
Stevenson is the fourth school to have fielded at least two winners. Previously, Auburn (Rockford) has fielded Cole Timmerwilke (2014), Lloyd Sy (2009 and 2011), and Siva Sundaram (2008); New Trier (Winnetka) has fielded Carlo Angiuli (2007) and Matt Keenan (2002); and Wheaton North has fielded Greg Gauthier (2007) and Paul Gauthier (2003).