[Karthik]

Ohh, the bracket...

It really was a thing of glory to look at. At the championship event, I think it was on a piece of paper that was 11" x 17". The amazing thing about it was, that they didn't publish any of the seedings until Friday morning. So you were literally guessing as to your ranking, or you had to compile all the data yourself.

The other interesting part about the bracket, was the huge difference between being the 1st seed and the 2nd seed. As Andy mentioned, the 1st seed had a bye until the quarterfinals, while the second seed maybe got a bye through the first round. Considering that in 1998 there were only 4 seeding matches, you can see that would be a lot of teams clumped at the top.

Also, you never wanted to end up on the losers side of the bracket, especially early on in the day. Matches in the losers bracket came fast and furious. If I recall correctly, in 1998 Wildstang got knocked to the losers side of the bracket very early on in the day. (They were mere inches away from a perfect score, but ended up with a zero. They maxed out the multipliers, but their ball which would have been their base score, was ruled as not scored.) They proceeded to the losers side of the bracket, and made a phenomenal run of at least 8 straight victories. Unfortunately they lost in the final play in match to the quarterfinals. (They were beaten by Team 1, I believe)

Does anyone have a copy of the 1998 ladder. Blank would be great, but filled in would be even better. I'd love to see it. I can offer up some NiagaraFIRST merchandise for someone who produces a complete 1998 Nationals bracket.