Adisadel answered the last question right but there were no Santaclausians to applaud. That correct answer did not matter. They have lost a trophy that looked stoically protected until their campaign collapsed in the fourth round.

St. Peter's SHS have emerged winners after 12-year barren spell and Arsenal has still not won the Premier League since 2003.

The unseeded school that had to go through the drudgery of the preliminary stages where the less fancied school can inflict embarrassment of early elimination. The seeded schools - Prempeh College, Adisadel College, PRESEC, Mfantsipim all cooled off waiting to end dreams of the minnows.

The eventual winner for the 2018 NSMQ did not look likely. They trailed WASS and Adisco in several rounds and after some time it looked like a straight fight between WASS and Adisco.

But.

Rejuvenation happened in the 4th round. Nobody knows where it came from but it came, St. Peter's proving their true identity in the True and False round. Adisco's promising start looked false.

The last round of riddles saw Adisco put up a performance riddled with wrong answers. And as they petered out, St.Peter's restored and overtook Adisco.

Adisco was out before the last riddle. The duel was on. One wrong answer and WASS would waste a golden opportunity to emerge shock winners - WASS wasted it.

Peter's answered two out of four riddles, Adisco and WASS could answer one apiece as the Eastern regional school edged the contest by a sole point.

A fantastic photo finish.

End of contest: St. Peter's SHS: 45 pts West Africa SHS: 44pts Adisadel College: 39pts

Students and alumni of St. Peter's were too drained to jubilate. A roller coaster performance had knocked the 'jama' out of them. A subdued jubilation.

When they had nothing they chanted louder but when they won everything, they could not really celebrate with the careless swagger of champions.

Adisadel after three consecutive finals goes home like last year - empty-handed. Of course, their contestant's tears would be dried away with cash prizes from Bond Savings and Loans company.

Bond bound them in comfort and saved them tears.

Outside the National Theatre, Adisco boys tied their school uniforms into headgears. For others, it became something of a face towel while for others still, the uniform flew around their bodies like a flagged flying at half mast.

Adisco boys jumped into taxis and used their phones to hunt down Uber rides.

Others huddled at bus stops ready to fill every available seat as long as it was travelling any direction away from the National Theatre where their dream second title died.