Championship Match
The participants in the Championship Match are the one player who won all 7 preliminary matches (the Morning Champion), the seven players who won 6 of their preliminary matches, and the (one) player who had the highest points per tossup heard among those who won 5 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.
| Ethan Strombeck | Matthew Lee | Arjun Nageswaran | Aristotle Vainikos | Wilder Seitz | Ana Pranger | Kevin Kodama | Mitch McCullar | Jaden Lucas | Answer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auburn (Rockford) | IMSA (Aurora) | Stevenson (Lincolnshire) | Sandburg (Orland Park) | Barrington | Latin School (Chicago) | Oak Park-River Forest | Williamsville | Carbondale | ||
| Initial scores | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | ||
| 1 | 1 | −1 | closed (math) | |||||||
| 2 | 1 | −1 | trademarks | |||||||
| 3 | 1 | Hiram Bingham | ||||||||
| 4 | 1 | Mishima Yukio | ||||||||
| 5 | −1 | Alonzo Church | ||||||||
| 6 | 1 | rondo | ||||||||
| 7 | −1 | −1 | −1 | 1 | Ruth (biblical) | |||||
| 8 | 1 | Battle of Zama | ||||||||
| 9 | 1 | Los Angeles (as a literary setting) | ||||||||
| 10 | 1 | elastic moduli | ||||||||
| 11 | −1 | −1 | 1 | Così fan tutte | ||||||
| 12 | 1 | Nice, France | ||||||||
| 13 | 1 | Samuel Richardson | ||||||||
| 14 | 1 | Safavid dynasty | ||||||||
| 15 | hyphae | |||||||||
| 16 | −1 | 1 | UNESCO | |||||||
| 17 | 1 | Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog | ||||||||
| 18 | 1 | Horace | ||||||||
| 19 | −1 | 1 | saccharin | |||||||
| 20 | 1 | Aachen | ||||||||
| Scores through 20 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 6 | 4 | ||
| Ethan Strombeck, as Morning Champion, entered the game with a score equal to that of the then-leader, Kevin Kodama: 9. | ||||||||||
| 21 | 1 | Chihuahua (the state) | ||||||||
| 22 | 1 | Permian period | ||||||||
| 23 | Piers Plowman | |||||||||
| 24 | 1 | −1 | Cnut the Great | |||||||
| 25 | 1 | maize (American mythology) | ||||||||
| 26 | chelation | |||||||||
| 27 | 1 | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | ||||||||
| 28 | −1 | Adam Clayton Powell | ||||||||
| 29 | −1 | 1 | Mont Sainte-Victoire | |||||||
| 30 | 1 | gluons | ||||||||
| 31 | 1 | Notes from the Underground | ||||||||
| 32 | 1 | Kris Kobach | ||||||||
| 33 | 1 | string quartets | ||||||||
| 34 | 1 | Great Northern War | ||||||||
| 35 | 1 | actin | ||||||||
| 36 | 1 | Peter Shaffer | ||||||||
| 37 | −1 | The Dying Gaul | ||||||||
| 38 | 1 | −1 | −1 | Empress Dowager Cixi | ||||||
| 39 | −1 | 1 | relative primality | |||||||
| 40 | −1 | 1 | pleasure principle | |||||||
| Scores through 40 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 5 | 4 | |
| The five players with the lowest scores were eliminated: Matthew Lee, Arjun Nageswaran, Wilder Seitz, Ana Pranger, and Jaden Lucas. | ||||||||||
| 41 | 1 | Carl Maria von Weber | ||||||||
| 42 | magnetic dipole moment | |||||||||
| 43 | 1 | −1 | Themistocles | |||||||
| 44 | 1 | Chuck Schumer | ||||||||
| 45 | 1 | Alexander Pushkin | ||||||||
| 46 | 1 | convex (mathematics) | ||||||||
| 47 | −1 | 1 | Thailand (history) | |||||||
| 48 | 1 | John Dewey | ||||||||
| 49 | 1 | Mario Vargas Llosa | ||||||||
| 50 | 1 | −1 | peroxisome | |||||||
| Scores through 50 | 17 | eliminated | eliminated | 5 | eliminated | eliminated | 13 | 6 | eliminated | |
| The two players with the lowest scores were eliminated: Aristotle Vainikos and Mitch McCullar. | ||||||||||
| 51 | 1 | Ella Fitzgerald | ||||||||
| 52 | 1 | Paraguay (history) | ||||||||
| 53 | 1 | Northanger Abbey | ||||||||
| 54 | 1 | −1 | thermosphere | |||||||
| 55 | 1 | Croatia (geography) | ||||||||
| 56 | −1 | John Llewellyn Lewis | ||||||||
| 57 | 1 | Sherman Alexie | ||||||||
| 58 | racemic mixtures | |||||||||
| 59 | 1 | Set (the god) | ||||||||
| 60 | 1 | Titian | ||||||||
| Final scores | 22 | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | eliminated | 14 | eliminated | eliminated | |
Ethan Strombeck of Auburn High School in Rockford, Illinois is the champion of the 2017 Scobol Solo. He is the fourth player from Auburn to win the tournament, and it is the fifth time an Auburn player has won (Siva Sundaram, 2008; Lloyd Sy, 2009 and 2011; Cole Timmerwilke, 2014).