Northeast Discussion '23/'24

[curiousmind34]

It's almost the end of 2023 and a lot of tournaments have happened in the Northeast this season, so I think it might be interesting to have a poll and some discussion on promising teams in the region to see where they stack up in relation to each-other and even how they might compare to other teams across the country at national championships.

Please fill out the form with your top 10 teams in the Northeast (including New England, NJ, NY , PA, and DE) by 11:59 PM on December 31 and include justifications if possible. Credit to Sam Macchi for creating the form because I'm not much of a forms/spreadsheets person.
link: https://forms.gle/8EHt7bo1CJ8wyyna7

For your information, here are the top 15 teams in the Northeast according to the December Groger Ranks (https://grogerranks.com/2023/12/23/dece ... -rankings/):

6 Livingston A (NJ) 101.81 IS-224
8 Hunter A (NY) 98.87 CREEK
14 Hastings A (NY) 95.71 HFT
18 Belmont A (MA) 93.62 CARD
20 High Tech A (NJ) 88.22 CREEK
21 Lexington A (MA) 87.89 IS-222
40 Darien A (CT) 80.97 CARD
46 Choate A (CT) 79.36 IS-222
56 Wilmington Charter A (DE) 77.49 IS-222
59 Downingtown STEM A (PA) 75.47 SWAMP
69 Great Valley A (PA) 73.34 CARD
72 Edison A (NJ) 71.52 IS-224
75 Darien B (CT) 71.42 IS-222
76 West Windsor-Plainsboro North A (NJ) 71.08 IS-222
90 Eastchester A (NY) 70.09 IS-222

I would aditionally consider checking the most recent hbranks here: https://liqba.com/team-rankings/.

Also, you guys can (and should!) share your analysis/shill teams in this thread.

[bennyfeldmn]

Livingston. The boy, Robert Wang, led to his team to 9 p/g at Garden Cup recently. With Bobby as a history lock and an absurd generalist, Sophia Wu as a top lit/fa player, and some sneaky and impressive sci/myth coverage from Lelun Li and Kevin Zhang, respectively, Livingston looks like the undisputed top team and is certainly in contention for the crown in Atlanta.

Once Chenery, now Belmont. What a team. Led by freshmen (!!) Andrew Gao and Gregory Zeldovich, this team seems to absolutely terrorize the stat sheet every tournament, notably with ~9 p/g on CARD and IS-222. If this team gets a good packet, they are unbeatable. Definitely worth considering near the top.

Sticking with Massachusetts freshmen, Lexington, my personal HSNCT sleeper, has emerged into top 5 consideration after an upset against Belmont at Charter Cup. It seems like this team (as much as I love my own) has improved the most since the summer, and they’re on a tear. Led in scoring by amazing geohist player Alvan Hossain and lit/fa player Shishir Bharadwaj, this team has amazing chemistry, all the potential in the world, and great specialization. I’m extremely excited to see their standing over the next few years.

Hastings (unbiased) is also looking great this year. Led in scoring by Hazel DePreist Sullivan and captained by Benny Feldman, this team is deeply specialized and covers the entire distribution. Their improvement seems unstoppable, and their most impressive performance was on HFT, defeating a full Hunter and getting 8 p/g. Also for the record, Hastings wasn’t on this hype list at the late-season poll last year, and now looks like a top 5 team.

Despite being from Monmouth County, High Tech has also been (somewhat surprisingly) absurd this year. With an impressive win over Hastings at ACE and great CREEK stats, this team really gets going with good momentum. Their balance between Daniel D’Silva, Ryan Leverock, Ranvith Adulla, and Rohan Arni is insane. Anything can happen when you’re playing this team, and I love it!

Choate also has a serious argument to be made for them. Sky Hong is arguably the best sci player in the region, but she has some amazing support, namely Kaden Wu and Peyton Li. I’m excited to see how they emerge and how they match up with some of the top tri-state teams!

This wouldn’t be a list without Hunter, would it? Led by sci main Matthew Kohn and absurd generalist Evan Schleck, this team can take anyone at anytime. I mean, it's Hunter, what do you expect? Their most impressive performance was 5.7 p/g and 20.4 ppb on a tough CREEK (which. shoutout to CREEK! great set <3).

Talk about flying under the radar, the top PA teams, both Downingtown STEM and Great Valley have been doing quietly great this season! After a shaky performance at ACE, captain Ryan Smith clapped back with an impressive W at Belmont Winter. Great Valley, led by top northeast lit player Travis Johnson, had some amazing wins (Hunter and Darien) at ACE, placing 4th. Having essentially a 4/4 lock on your team is always scary, excited to see how they develop.

A bastion of depth, both Darien A and B should honestly be in consideration here. Darien A, loosely based around freshman Aiden Younessian, solidly covers the distro and has only played full once this year, putting up a very solid 3rd place performance at Princeton. They have been flying under the radar this year, but watch out for them to climb. Darien B, led in scoring by Neev Sahgal, also finds its way into every playoffs and pulls out some amazing wins.

In terms of teams I’m excited to see play more, WWPN has to be on the list. Sophomore stud Aldric Benalan, supported by Parker Woo and Daniel Sepulveda, had a very solid performance at Princeton with 5 p/g. They’re young and they have been silent for a while, but I have no doubt that they will emerge at some point this year.

And, finally, this would be incomplete without mentioning the KING, the phenom, Max Lin from Eastchester. This guy just eats up NAQT for breakfast. It’s amazing to see a player like this come out of Westchester, and he will continue to be competitive in the circuit for the next few years.

[robby_redford]

I'm probably going to do way too much research and stat analysis for my actual poll, but in this shillpost I'd like to highlight the strengths of all of the Northeast teams which I actually have had experience playing or watching this year, and who I believe have it in them to pull the Super Seven. I play pretty thoughtlessly, so this will mainly be vibes-based. I'll also add what I believe to be each team's Dawg Factor, or the trait that sets them apart from other teams and will likely be their defining factor in a Nats run.

Livingston A: It's played out this year, but we are, as it stands, one of the best teams in the northeast. Sophia Wu and Alan Li are going to be emerging forces this year; Sophia has always been good on lit, but her years of studying FA are paying dividends and will be able to swing games. If I had to make predictions, she is on track to be a lit and FA lock by Nats season, and she will become an FA lock first. Alan was our sleeper last year; that is no longer the case. His increased motivation to study science and his genuine interest in physics is netting him a lot of WILD buzzes. Myself and Kevin Zhang are close to lockdown players on hist and myth respectively, and can get really good out-of-category buzzes to pad the team's scoreline and patch any holes in knowledge. The four of us are absolutely worth a spot in the top 3 of your poll.
Dawg Factor: "Out-of-Cat" Strength. Livi players, especially myself, Alan, and Kevin, are essentially pseudogeneralists - in an average game we will get a good third of our scoring from random s**t we just know. That effect gives us more flexibility in games when we face really strong specialists.

Alongside us in the top 3 are going to be Hastings A. Enough good things have been said about their playing skills, mostly by them, so I won't go into that. We know Owen Linder is insane on geo, Hazel DePriest-Sullivan is insane on lit and myth, and Benny Feldman is a weird hist-sci doubledog. They work incredibly well together, and from all of my talks with them and my games against them, it is clear that they, along with Jacob Goldman-Wetzler, spend a lot of time figuring out how best to improve and how to continue their growth streak. Given that all of Hastings A is either actively carding or intends to start soon, expect massive improvement coming from them this year.
Dawg Factor: Team Dynamic. This is bound to happen on teams whose members are childhood friends. Benny, Owen, Hazel, and Jacob have almost never split, which is unique among Northeast teams. When they go to tournaments, they go full and they go hard. The four of them all are focused on the mission, have a clear division of labor, and know at all times what they need to do for their team's improvement.

Belmont A under Greg Zeldovich and Andy Gao are picking up where Cindy and Sam left off. They're aggressive on the buzzer, confident in studying, and rich in experience from middle school. Since they've been doing HSquizbowl longer than some high schoolers, the two of them don't need to worry about scaling - they've essentially done that already. They put up insane stats on CARD and IS-224, showing strength in both mACF and NAQT sets. I know less about their dynamic than I do teams in the Tri-State, but what I do know is that Andy is one of the most dedicated players and Quizbowl personalities in the Northeast in general. He will go far, and so will Belmont.
Dawg Factor: Andy Gao. Andy has been an institution in NEQB for a reason; he's a great leader to his team and is incredibly involved in the community. His dedication is pretty hard to beat, and it's going to be a major factor in Belmont's success.

Lexington A had an absurd run at Charter Cup, shattering my expectations. They put up almost 6 p/g with very little negs to their name, knocked 4 teams into the double digits, and, of course, scored a major upset win against Belmont. Shishir Bharadwaj is an absurdly good lit player; when I was watching the Belmont-Lexington final with Benny, we voiced some version of "holy s**t" to each other several times at some of their buzz. Alvan Hossein is an incredible history/geo main as well, leading them in score. The entire team works incredibly well together, and have shown massive improvement in a short amount of time.
Dawg Factor: Youth. It has to be said that all of Lexington are freshmen. This gives them major advantages on the studying front, funny enough - being younger and more dedicated allows them to eat a lot of knowledge really quickly. Lexington's players are some of the most energetic and motivated I've seen this year, and that is going to do wonders for them. Don't sleep on them - the Super Seven are in their future.

One of the most ancient rules in Northeast Quizbowl is to never bet against Hunter A. They have always been one of the most dominant teams in the region for a reason; they've got a massive program, a dedicated base of nerds to draw from, and a great advisor in the form of Ms. Samuel. Evan Schleck is a force to be reckoned with - he went shorthanded to Garden Cup because of a splitqual and he made it into finals unscathed. Don't sleep on his Lit or FA knowledge - he's a major hist player, of course, but his other cats are just as impressive. Matthew Kohn is one of the best science players in the region, and will normally only trail Evan by a couple of buzzes each game. They've had a couple tough losses in the past couple of months, but if they play their cards right, and keep their heads on straight, they will regain their crown.
Dawg Factor: Club History. Every time the Northeast has bet against Hunter, they've been wrong. They have a culture of strong involvement in Quizbowl, of ambitious underclassmen, and of getting back up after getting knocked. As CARD has shown, the power of a housewrite is also immense in getting players combat-ready, and Hunter has that with Prison Bowl. Hunter are bruised, but they're not out.

[BulldogBuzzers]

West Chester Henderson A should factor into your calculations. Due to quirks with Chester County's IU competition, they've only played A-sets outside the IU and have a 2nd (ahead of Great Valley, Germantown Friends, and Downingtown STEM) and a first (over Wilmington Charter) in two tournaments to show for it.

[DragonSM]

Poll results are out!
1. Livingston A: 180 points, average ranking of 1.05, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 2 (dropped)
2. Hunter A: 149 points, average ranking of 2.8, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 2 (dropped), lowest vote: 5 (dropped)
3. Hastings A: 146 points, average ranking of 2.9, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 5 (dropped)
4. Belmont A: 131 points, average ranking of 3.75, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 2 (dropped), lowest vote: 6 (dropped)
5. Lexington A: 104 points, average ranking of 5.25, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 2 (dropped), lowest vote: 9 (dropped)
6. High Tech A: 86 points, average ranking of 6.16, ranked in 19/20 ballots, highest vote: 5 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
7. Darien A: 85 points, average ranking of 6.25, ranked in 20/20 ballots, highest vote: 4 (dropped), lowest vote: 8 (dropped)
8. Great Valley A: 31 points, average ranking of 8.31, ranked in 13/20 ballots, highest vote: 7 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
9. Choate A: 28 points, average ranking of 8.09, ranked in 11/20 ballots, highest vote: 7 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
10. Downingtown STEM A: 12 points, average ranking of 9.33, ranked in 9/20 ballots, highest vote: 8 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
Also receiving votes: Edison A (5 points), Eastchester A (5 points), Darien B (4 points), Livingston B (4 points), Wilmington Charter A (3 points), Mountain Lakes A (2 points), Biotech A (1 points), West Chester Henderson A (0), Stuyvesant A (0), WWPN A (0).

Full results and justifications can be found here.

[curiousmind34]

Nationals are fast-approaching again this year, and with only a couple of tournaments in the region and it's time for a pre-nats poll. Additionally the Northeast Regional Championships are coming up (which, shameless plug, you should all sign up for) and this could provide an interesting preview of the top contenders there.

Please fill out the form with your top 10 teams in the Northeast (including New England, NJ, NY , PA, and DE) by 11:59 PM EST on April 26 and include justifications if possible. Once again, big thanks to Sam Macchi for running the backend of the poll.
poll link

Below I have listed the top 15 teams on Groger Ranks for your reference.

RANK TEAM SCORE BEST SET
5 Livingston A (NJ) 103.39 IS-224
10 Belmont A (MA) 97.97 Planetfall
14 Hunter A (NY) 96.06 Maryland Spring
18 Hastings A (NY) 94.54 CARD
20 Lexington A (MA) 92.07 Scottie
28 Darien A (CT) 86.35 SHOW-ME More
33 High Tech A (NJ) 84.16 CARD
53 Great Valley A (PA) 79.89 Planetfall
55 Choate A (CT) 79.32 IS-222
60 Downingtown STEM A (PA) 78.43 Planetfall
67 Wilmington Charter A (DE) 77.08 IS-222
74 Westwood A (MA) 75.10 CARD
80 Livingston B (NJ) 74.32 Planetfall
83 Math, Science, and Engineering at CCNY A (NY) 74.18 SHOW-ME More
85 Eastchester A (NY) 74.11 IS-228

I would also check out the latest hbranks. Feel free to shill any teams (including ones not in your top 10)!

[bennyfeldmn]

ATTENTION: Below are summaries of each team's season's, including their strengths and weaknesses. Please DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT just fill out the poll based on Groger or HBranks (no, I'm not just saying this on behalf of Hastings). For one, these shills took me very long and I'd love for you to read them, but more than that, using this poll as a regurgitation of Groger reduces the complicated and amazing roller coaster that this season has been in the Northeast. So please do as much research as you can while filling out your poll. Enjoy!

Livingston
This team should probably take your number one spot. Led by one of the best players in the country, Robert Wang, Livingston has shown to be extremely strong in the fragmented bits and pieces they have played over the year. They deserve their #5 Groger Rank.
Strengths: On any given packet, Bobby will probably be taking at least 6 tossups. Between his near lock on History, his other specializations in Geo/Religion/SS/CE, and his overall generalism, he is a force to be reckoned with, especially on NAQT distribution. Also, between very solid Lit coverage and being sneakily one of if not the top FA players in the region, Sophia Wu can also do DAMAGE. The team altogether also has some absurd generalism (looking at you Kevin Zhang) that can turn the tide in any game.
Weaknesses: Sci. Against any top team in the country (this includes Lexington, Hunter, and Hastings from the Northeast, all with strong sci specializations), Livingston usually always comes in with the disadvantage on the category. Does this matter? We don't know because they do everything else at such a high level, but it's certainly a weakness going into HSNCT. Also, to my knowledge the team in general (and Sophia especially) have not played a higher-difficulty set this year, which I hinted at above. This lack of sample size shouldn't be taken too much into consideration, but an overall lack of combat as a full team could lead to some rust at NERC and HSNCT.

Hastings
Hello! Despite our Groger ranking, Hastings should likely be occupying your 2 slot, if not your three. Unlike Livingston and many other teams on this list, Hastings has, in the words of Bobby Wang, "gone full and gone hard" this year. Hastings a massive sample size and an absurd amount of experience this year, so please peruse those stats if interested!
Strengths: What we call "The Spreadsheet," Hastings A has divided the entire distribution among its four members to specialize, meaning every category is studied and every tossup is in contention. All of those four members are seniors and childhood friends, meaning their team chemistry and ability to mentally recover from hardship is as good as any team's. Basically, anything that could give a team an advantage of quiz bowl other than "knowing things," Hastings has, which will serve them well in-game at HSNCT this year.
Weaknesses: Weak in FA (especially in a circuit with strong FA players on teams like Darien, Livingston, and High Tech). They are also just below teams at the very top nationally in terms of Raw Knowledge like Livingston. It's possible this discrepancy is outweighed by their strengths, but that is to be decided in May.

Belmont
Everyone knew Belmont was going to be good as a transfer of last year's MSNCT champions. Any scaling issues or growing pains they may have had are gone, and they look extremely strong this year.
Strengths: Without very clear category distinctions, Belmont can take anything off anyone. In their more impressive wins, usually one or both of Andrew Gao and Gregory Zeldovich absolutely go to work on a packet with "their content," which appear frequently. I also have to mention the defeat of both TJ's at PBXVI without Greg. The strengths of Belmont are the strengths of generalism overall
Weaknesses: High n/g and prone to tilt while losing or after a loss. Also, while this occurs less frequently, they are easily susceptible to "bad packets," which could make HSNCT more of a dice roll for them. We shall see!

Lexington
Seemingly at parity with Belmont, Lexington shot up like a rocket between December and February this year. Regardless of their placement now, they, being all freshmen, have three more years to bite at the apple along with Belmont, and they will undoubtedly dominate.
Strengths: Big 3 specialization is HUGE for this team, especially this early in their HS careers. With favorable content, the amount of knowledge they have makes them able to beat anyone on this list. They also have great team chemistry and are built to play together, which is always a plus (when they play full).
Weaknesses: The only higher-difficulty set (excluding Scottie) that they have played this year is Prison Bowl, where their numbers, while amazing, were slightly lower than expected given their absolute demolition (especially against Belmont) on regs sets this year. They seem to be studying hard in order to scale for nats, and I have no doubt this will not be a concern next year, but it's something to keep an eye on. Also, like Belmont, rather high n/g.

Darien
A classic. Darien seems to show up with a collection of folks to pretty much every tournament in the tri-state area, and they always do great! Only question is who their actual A team is... but I suppose we're leaving that up for interpretation.
Strengths: FA. My god is this team good at FA. With VFA covered solidly by Rajiv Pujara, and AFA nearly locked by Fierro Grey, Darien can expect to do solidly on any FA tossup. They also always have solid generalism from Rajiv (who, IMO, generalizes the best in the Northeast), which makes them able to throw very random haymakers to win games.
Weaknesses: Their Sci seems to rely on the generalism of whoever they have on the A team that day... which is not ideal when facing Sci specialists and what seems to prevent them from breaking into the top tier (RIP Darryl). Their FA is really the only thing they do at a SUPER high level, which creates inconsistencies when they play other teams near the middle of the top 10.

Hunter
WHOA. Hunter?? NOT THE FIRST TEAM MENTIONED?!?! Yeah, Hunter seems to have actually, seriously, forreal this time, had a "down year" where they are not in the top 2 of the Northeast. They are still playing phenomenally, so I will try to keep my comments as objective as possible given the fact that we're talking about an empire.
Strengths: EVAN SCHLECK IS AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER. This guy just pulled up and got 2 p/g at a 2 dot closed college tournament. I've been talking about generalists a lot, but I don't even see Evan as a generalist, I just see him as a really stacked specialist in EVERYTHING (except sci). Matthew Kohn is also one of the best Sci players in the Northeast let's not discount Matthew.
Weaknesses: They seem to have dropped in production and studying compared to other teams as the year as progressed. At the beginning of the year they seemed to be #2 very close to Livi, but they have seemingly declined a little bit since then. Again, this is Hunter, so they could pull it out and finish top bracket at PACE again (Matthew, to my knowledge, is not going to HSNCT).

High Tech
This past weekend at PreNats, after falling off the face of the Earth for six months, High Tech sent a fragmented A team and managed to beat Belmont, Hastings, and Darien and finish 3rd. So yes, they should be on your list.
Strengths: They can just beat anyone anytime on any set. I'm going off stats from October for this so I may be outdated, but their performance on CREEK was on par with Hastings and Hunter at the time, so I don't see any issues with scaling to HSNCT difficulties, especially after PreNats.
Weaknesses: Swingy Swingy Swingy. I think this team is the most momentum-dependent I have ever seen in my life. My teammates and I joke frequently that we increase our chances of getting the next tossup after a timeout by orders of magnitude when we're playing High Tech because we just stop their momentum. There's something about this team man... idk. They could get t13 or t97 at HSNCT I can't even tell at this point, take this as you will for polling purposes.

Ok now I'm gonna rapid fire teams off the Groger list who should probably be contending for your 8-10 slots in short blurbs because writing these descriptions is exhausting and my knowledge on these teams is waning teehee.

Choate
Sky is an insane Sci player and seems to be generalizing better and better with every tournament she solo's. She also has some very solid support and the BAIT win over Lex was huge. Outside of sci they don't cover anything super super well so here we are.

Great Valley
Travis Johnson is one of the top lit players in the region, we know this. They also have some very sneaky Sci coverage from their 2 and 3 players, which allows them to do surprisingly well at a lot of NJ tournaments. They do have category gaps and neg issues, though.

Eastchester
AAAAAAAA MY BABY BOY Max Lin. This guy. This guy is why I did quiz bowl outreach to Westchester during HS. He is obviously insane and can eat NAQT for breakfast, again, we know this, but there are some scaling concerns. Whether he just doesn't jive with harder sets or just doesn't jive with mACF or both is TBD at HSNCT.

Livingston B
This team is mainly led by Arav Kaushik, a Sophia Wu disciple who will take her role as Livi A runs it back next year, who is a dawg. Ben Laskov provides sneaky very good Sci and Ethan Liu GeoHist to Arav's Lit. They are not quite there, but they seem bound for HSNCT playoffs.

DSTEM
Ryan Smith is very good, notably beating teams led by Bobby Wang and Andrew Gao at Prison Bowl. He tends to tilt and doesn't cover everything, but he can throw his haymakers when it counts.

Wilmington Charter
Has come to nothing since Princeton, where they did pretty well! Take that as you will.

HSMSE
Vidyut comes to nothing in person but good on him for his IPNCT finish!

Westwood
I know nothing about this team and I'm too lazy to do any research, thanks for reading this far though!