University Challenge: Preliminary Quarter-Final 3: Pembroke vs St George's

Well, after last week's fascinating show was overshadowed by Paxo's 'unjust' berating, I don't see much chance of a similar fallout to this week's show. It should've been a good one on paper.

Pembroke College Cambridge comfortably defeated Lancaster in the first round, then annihilated Bath in the second round with the biggest win of the series so far. They remained:

Robert Scanes, from North London, studying Natural Sciences

Emily Maw, from Oxford, studying Maths

Captain: Tom Foxall, from Birmingham, studying Classics

Jemima Hodkinson, from Portsmouth, studying Natural Sciences

St George's London were perhaps the most underrated team in these quarters, having narrowly beaten fellow quarter-finalists King's College Cambridge in the first round, and then also defeating Lancaster in the second, as Paxo pointed out. They were still:
Shashank Sivaji, from Southend-on-Sea, studying Medicine 
Alexander Suebsaeng, from London, studying Medicine
Captain: Rebecca Smoker, from County Kildare, studying Medicine
Sam Mindel, from London, studying Medicine

Well, the early momentum was with St George's, the elder of the two teams, who quickly swept up the first set of bonuses, before promptly dropping their next two. Two starters were also dropped in the opening exchanges, including a very unlucky miss by Pembroke. The Cambridge side got off the mark with the first picture round, after which St George's led by 50-10.

St George's still had the main momentum, and Pembroke just couldn't seem to make any leeway. St George's managed a full house on, what sounded like, a very difficult bonus set on the Economist. The highlight of the night for me came in the music round, on winners of the Classic Brit Awards, when one of the bonuses was the original Red Dwarf theme. Being a fan of the show, I knew it was Howard Goodall; Pembroke didn't, and they now trailed by 95-30.

The deficit increased as Rebecca Smoker took her first starter of the series, on her first buzz of the series. There seemed to be an awful lot of very tricky science questions tonight, which seemed to me to be a bit unfair on Pembroke, whose opponents would have an obvious advantage on this. When Pembroke got such a set of bonuses, Paxo remarked that St George's must be knowing all these answers!

After the second picture round, on astronomy, St George's led by 135-60. Still a closeable gap, but the way things were going, it looked unlikely that Pembroke would be able to catch them. They tried, and a full set of bonuses pulled them up towards respectability. But Sam Mindel wasn't going to take the chance of letting them catch up, and promptly took two starters in a row to cement the already certain win. Pembroke did reach three figures in the closing moments, despite missing one bonus due to interrupting Paxo before he'd finished! At the gong, St George's won by 195-105.

Not a terribly spectacular match, but a good win for St George's, who must now be taken seriously, having beaten three good teams so far. Alexander Suebsaeng continued his impressive series performance, getting five starters; the side managed 18 bonuses out of 33, which is impressive considering how tricky the bonuses seemed to be tonight. Pembroke weren't so lucky, just 8 bonuses out of 21; Robert Scanes led their buzzing with three starters. Both sides incurred one penalty each, and all eight players got at least one starter correct.

Next week's match: New College vs King's (good luck James and co!)