How to Calculate a Tie-Breaker

In our last post, we went into detail about how ordinalized scoring works. This system allows for ranking of teams relative to the performance of the other teams at their Meet, but it is still possible to end up with a tie. If this occurs during a Round Robin Meet, the tie stands and the Host/Facilitator may request additional ribbons as appropriate. However, during Regionals, only the first place team at each Meet can advance to the State Meet.

In the event of a tie at the Regional Meet, these are the steps to break a tie:

1 – In case of tied ordinal score rankings, the team with the highest combined raw score wins.

For example: The top two teams each have an ordinalized score of 250. Team X received this score by getting ordinalized score of 100 + 70 + 80 for P.A.R.T.Y., Mind Sprints, and Face-Off!; and Team Y received this score by getting 50 + 100 + 100 in the same order. However, if Team X received a total raw score of 175 and Team Y’s raw score was 170, Team X would receive first place and Team Y would receive second place.

2 – If still tied, the team that did the best in the most events wins.

For example: In the case of Teams X and Y above, let’s assume instead that they received the same raw score of 175. In this case, Team Y came in first in two events and Team X came in first in one. Team Y would receive first place and Team X would receive second place.

3 – In the highly unlikely case the teams are still tied, the Host/Facilitator flips a coin.