For the first time this year, Harvard's College Bowl team failed to win a tournament it had entered, losing to the University of Virginia in the semifinals at a competition last Saturday.

The tournament, which the University of Virginia later went on to win, was attended by 36 other teams from 20 other schools, including Duke, the University of Pennsylvania and Williams College.

Harvard sent two four-person teams to the competition. One team made it to the semifinals with an 8-3 record before losing to Virginia 270 to 210. The other team had a 7-4 record and missed the playoffs on a tied game.

"One negative is that this was the first tournament that Harvard entered and did not win the entire thing," said Matthew L. Bruce '96, president of the Harvard's College Bowl team and captain of team that reached the semifinals.

Bruce said that all of the players except for him were playing in their first College Bowl season.

"Because of the Harvard-Yale Game and a big grad school event, some of our best players couldn't make it," he said.

According to Bruce, the Harvard College Bowl team won two earlier tournaments this season hosted by MIT and the University of Maryland.

College Bowl is a Jeopardy-like game in which team members buzz in their answers to questions on history, literature, science and current events, along with a few on religion, economics, sports and pop culture.

"It was good preparation for the National Championships in the spring," said Bruce.