NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

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NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by hildebrand of sovana »

Discuss here the coming Academic Tournament season for the region. (This encompasses NJ, NY, DE, and nearby states.)

Please: do not unnecessarily target individuals, teams, religions, creeds, etc.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

I'll offer up some information about Charter for the coming season. I'd say expect a very different feel from our team. There is a lot of change going on within our club, a lot of which is exciting. Additionally, I'm not sure how active I'll be in the early season and I probably will not play many tournaments in the NY/NJ area for personal reasons. Finally, Rohan Narayan is improving at a rapid pace. I wouldn't be surprised if he lay claims to best player in science, history, geography, and RMP by mid-season of next year.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by FloppyBird »

Lo, Marathon Ham! wrote:Finally, Rohan Narayan is improving at a rapid pace. I wouldn't be surprised if he lay claims to best player in science, history, geography, and RMP by mid-season of next year.
I have no idea where my teammate got this idea, as my summer is pretty much booked by a trip to India and University of Delaware internship....please disregard the above quotation, as there is absolutely no way that is happening.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Votre Kickstarter Est Nul »

I know this isn't exactly a team discussion but on December 12th, 2015 East Brunswick will be hosting its first ever tournament. The rest of the information will be out soon (in the form of an official post and when the date reservation post comes out) but as it is our first year I just wanted to get this out there.

Since this is about discussion I'll contribute a bit to keep up the spirit of the post: East Brunswick is obviously losing Shravan but the rest of the team is looking to pick up everything he leaves, which is a lot. Other than replacing lost leadership EB will probably be much teh same in terms of amount of tourneys, etc. As its June 10 thats really all there is to say about us :)
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by chalpin »

Has anyone claimed October 17th 2015? Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, NJ would like to move our tournament from March to October because of the SAT's and Easter.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Everything in the Whole Wide World »

There is a tournament at Delaware Valley High School in Matamoras,PA just over the border that day.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Urech hydantoin synthesis »

chalpin wrote:Has anyone claimed October 17th 2015? Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, NJ would like to move our tournament from March to October because of the SAT's and Easter.
Columbia University is planning to host a tournament either on that day or the week before.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Great Bustard »

NHBB Lower Hudson returns to White Plains High School for the 6th year on Dec. 19. Further NHBB dates to follow soon. Also, can we get a calendar post up as usual for the area with dates?
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by chalpin »

October 24th or November 21?
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Majin Buu Roi »

Princeton University would like to hold our annual fall tournament (PHSAT XXIII) on September 26th, but Yale has tentatively scheduled FACT for that date as well. I'm going see what we can work out with them to see if we can avoid conflicting dates like last year. We might just go with the 26th anyway, since the fact that the FACT and PHSAT conflicted last year did not seem to adversely affect either tournament do a notable degree.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by a Joe »

Now that we're in July, does anyone have any analysis of what the upcoming year will look like? I wasn't really able to go to too many tourneys this past year, so I really don't know very much (but am very curious, since I plan on going to a ton next year.)
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by The Polebarn Hotel »

I think that in general, it's going to be a bit less rigorous and intense because of the seniors that graduated this year. It's still going to be competitive, but slightly less so, and I really hope we see teams begin to emerge and get stronger within the circuit. It's good to see the same schools doing well, but it's even better and more refreshing to see new faces in the top brackets. I don't want to make projections yet because there's a lot that can happen over the summer, but I'm excited to see what will happen at tournaments.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Bosa of York »

1: Bethlehem is still pretty good; High Tech might be less good (though this exact same result occurred last year and we proceeded to win exactly one game against them the rest of the year).

2: I was seriously impressed by Hunter B. What grades were its members in? If they make any improvement Hunter will definitely continue to be a powerhouse.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by kitkat »

Xochiquetzal wrote:1: Bethlehem is still pretty good
Seconded. We only had the honor of playing Bethlehem in the finals, but considering how they crushed our B team (and every other team in the field, including us), I think Eric is shaping up to be the strongest individual player in our region. He doesn't seem to have any particular weakness, including in science, that I noticed, especially with support from Daniel and others.
Xochiquetzal wrote:High Tech might be less good
That's probably a reasonable assumption. But I mean, it's hard to tell this early how we will stack up to last year's team. Rohan/Adithya/Julian/Sharan were all fantastic players and we'll try our best to live up to that.

Going in order of finish, next comes East Brunswick A, which is definitely another team to watch out for. We played them in the prelims and again in the semis, which was actually a much closer game than what the score makes it out to be. Yes, Shravan graduated, but Emmett, Anand, Mason, and Jason are a really solid team in their own right. From what I remember from our games, Emmett got some amazing history/ce buzzes, Jason's pretty good at lit, and Anand and Mason help out with science and fa. I think if East Brunswick reigns in their negging a bit and continues to adapt to playing without Shravan, they will do well.

Hunter B: If there's one thing I remember with our game with Hunter B it was the last few questions. They powered 5 out of the last 6 questions when they were down 455 to 45, and I admire that. I don't think many teams would stay that focused and keep playing until the end.

Obviously, it's the first tournament of the year, so many teams did not bring their full A team (Hunter, Charter, etc) or were not present. Because of that, I'm really hesitant with making predictions for the rest of the year but I will say in general this is shaping up to be another exciting year. Also congrats to Bethlehem!
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

So after a few tournaments, what does everyone think of the region this year. I know we haven't played in NY/NJ as much as we'd like to, but we did get to play against Hunter and Bethlehem this past weekend. I can say I'm really impressed with Eric for his dominance this season and Luke has really improved a lot and continues to do so (quite terrifying really). Also, besides our bonus conversion, we've been a bit underwhelming so far this season. Hopefully we can get that to change.

Other thoughts, anybody?
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by swaymun.shahee »

I also agree that Eric is player in the Northeast right now. The best teams, in my opinion, in the regions, in non particular order, are: High Tech A, Bethlehem, Charter A and Lexington. Hunter and East Brunswick are doing very well as well. DV A is getting better as well but we have a bit of a negging problem.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Votre Kickstarter Est Nul »

Because of my terrible sleep schedule and lack of homework I guess I’ll try my hand at one of
these longer analyses. I have relatively limited knowledge of the region though so pardon any
oversights. In no particular order (I’ll have rankings at the bottom):

Bethlehem: Eric is the best player in the region, and Bethlehem is the best team in the region as
of right now. Not much more to say. On a side note, Eric is a ton of fun to lose to. He’s funny
and incredibly kind about destroying people (I’m being serious).

High Tech A: Andrew, Kathryn, Doug, and the somehow a junior Sam form an incredibly
knowledgable core 4. They all have cross-category knowledge except Doug (I could be wrong,
but regardless he makes up for it with insane History/Geo knowledge). In a much more level
New Jersey, High Tech is still the team to beat and I believe they team to beat outside of
Bethlehem in the region.

GNS A: I don’t know much about them this year but last year Lucia and Allan form a very
strong 1-2 combo and they have performed well this year at LIFT and Columbia. I’d guess they
will be very strong this year again.

Charter A: Another team who I have yet to play this year, but knowing their returning A team
members Rohan, Mohan, and Shrayus as well as alternates Mabel and Jared (and Aditya though I
have yet to play him) they should continue to be very strong. When we play them I’ll be
interested to see how they filled in Varun’s absence.

Hunter A: Luke has become very, very good and continues to get better. As long as they have
Albert, they are a very strong team and should continue to be a top team in the entire region. Still
not sure if they have a literature player but whatever the case may be they seem to do a good job
covering it.

Ithaca A: They have yet to play in the core of the region (NJ/NYC) this year, and for that I may
be doing them a disservice in my analyses. Daniel and Casey are both very good players with
History and Lit respectively and I expect them to do very well when they come down to
NJ/NYC.

East Brunswick A: After losing Shravan, we worked hard to replace his presence. I think we
have one of the strongest 3 man History/Science/Lit cores in Myself/Anand/Jason and continue
to reign in our negging because the powers/ppb with our full team seems to be there. Mason also
adds great Myth knowledge and supplements my history. As long as Jason’s mom lets him come
to tournaments, I expect EB to get better and as of right now I see us as a 1a team in NJ along
with Bergen behind High Tech (though I could be wrong; weird analyzing my own team).

Bergen A: Their LIFT performance was confusing: They played very impressively against us
and yet dropped games I expected them to win. Regardless, Rebecca, David, Zach, and Alon
make up a very strong core 4 who put up very strong ppbs regardless of how they are playing. If
they power questions like they did against us, which they are certainly capable of doing
consistently, they will be a force.

Livingston A: Sora leads what continues to be a team that refuses to drop off after losing 3/4 of
their A team. Her lit and art knowledge is incredible, though I have yet to fully grasp her
teammates skill levels. They should continue to place well at tournaments and I expect them to
be a contender in NJ all year.

Millburn A: They have only been to one tournament so far and are thus hard to judge. Elliot and
Michael have strong knowledge in History and whatever Michael does respectively I’m not sure and they
played very well against us at LIFT (although the 8 powers and 25 ppb seem to be a bit of an
anomaly). I expect them to be a contender in NJ in a “second-tier” (although the phrase
second-tier does them a disservice) of contenders with Livingston.

Region Rankings (with NJ rank in parentheses)
1.Bethlehem
2.High Tech A (1)
3.Charter A/Hunter A
4.GNS A
5.East Brunswick A (2)
6.Ithaca A
7.Bergen A (3)
8.Livingston A (4)
9.Millburn A (5)

Teams left off/would make up the rest of the rankings if I continued: DV seems pretty good though I know nothing about them. Alex Schmidt/Lehigh
Valley should make the JV history bee vs Doug from HT a ton of fun to watch. St. Joes surprised
me at LIFT they will be better than expected after losing Greg. Eric Kilgore at Port Jefferson is
very good. Kings Park/Mountain Lakes are teams to keep an eye on.

Notes: Obviously I know my own team better than any others and so if I have over-ranked us
whoops my b. NJ is much more level this year and I think it should make for a very fun season.
I’ll be looking forward to taking on Sam/Doug/Andrew at History Bowl/Bee (except Doug who
is in JV Bee). I am no expert of this region and feel free to critique my rankings/analysis; I’m
hoping this will spur others to make cool long analysis thingys they’re fun to read.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by sdk »

In the vein of Emmett (and because I'm bored and have no life to speak of), I figured I'd also try my hand at these ranking things. Rankings will follow the commentaries, which are in no particular order.

Bethlehem: Bethlehem has undoubtedly the best individual player in the region, and perhaps the best team in the Northeast at large (although Lexington might beg to differ). Eric is terrifying to face, with his vast knowledge and no visibly apparent gaps, and his teammates (when they do show up) provide useful support to him. High Tech has had the honor of being wrecked by him (very graciously though) twice already, and it should be expected that Eric's powerful performance will remain consistent throughout the rest of the year.

East Brunswick A: While losing Shravan to graduation, East Brunswick is still quite strong; I'm really impressed by how well they've been able to divvy up the various categories among each other in such an efficient way, with Emmett on history/fine arts, Jason on lit, Anand on science, and Mason on RMP. Besides being so broad in their coverage, each member of EB has deep knowledge in their respective categories as well, and they remain one of the best teams in NJ.

Bergen A: As with Emmett, I'm also somewhat perplexed about Bergen. We played them once at Columbia and again at LIFT, and, while they played well in their rounds against us, with strong buzzes and solid collaboration on bonuses, I was surprised to see that, contrary to my expectations, they lost certain games. I'm going to hold off on making definite conclusions too early, but I think that they will do well nevertheless.

Livingston A: Despite losing 75% of Livingston A to graduation, Sora has still been able to ably lead her team this year, with her excellent command of literature and fine arts, and her teammates provide valuable bolstering in areas such as RMP and history. I expect Livingston will continue to do well in the state and the surrounding area this year.

GNS A (aka West Egg A): GNS has played well this year, putting up impressive performances against us both at Columbia and LIFT, with some excellent buzzes. Lucia and Allan comprise a 2-person core, and GNS certainly has a good grasp on history, and I believe Allan knows some science too. They're definitely a team to continue watching out for.

Millburn A: We've only played them once at LIFT, but they did quite well, and it was a rather close match. Elliot and Michael know their history and landed some solid buzzes during their game with us (although unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with the rest of their categories), and there was very good intra-team collaboration on bonuses. Definitely another team to watch out for too.

Ithaca A: Much to my chagrin, Casey and co., due to this pesky thing called geography, have not been able to come to many tournaments in this area yet, so we have not played them formally either. However, from what I can recall from another summer Google Hangouts scrimmage we had with them, they are all very strong players, with a lot of knowledge; Casey is an amazing literature player; he and Andrey cover history as well; I also remember Daniel got a ton of questions during the scrimmage. I highly anticipate playing them at some point this year.

Charter A: High Tech has only scrimmaged with Mohan and Aditya on Google Hangouts once over the summer, and we have yet to play this quite formidable team, so I'm afraid I can't really say much about them as of now. However, I believe they will be in attendance at the UPenn tournament on 12/5, so I look forward to playing them there.

Hunter: We haven't played Hunter A yet, despite both attending PHSAT (that was due to their B team’s upset there) and Columbia Fall, but looking at stats, they’re definitely a great team, with strength in subjects such as history (as we know all too well, of course). I don't really know too much about them at the moment, though. Hunter B, however, played us at PHSAT, and I must say, for a team composed wholly of underclassmen, led by Daniel Ma, I was extremely impressed, and I think, given a few years, they'll be an extremely strong team.

St. Joe's A: They lost Greg to graduation, but that didn't stop them from playing an excellent match with us at LIFT, with 7 powers for them. However, their power rate seems to be somewhat inconsistent, varying considerably from game to game (they didn't power nearly as much during their game with us at PHSAT), although their PPB has remained fairly consistent; I'm not really quite sure what to make of that, but regardless, they're still a very solid team.

Port Jefferson: Eric Kilgore is the mainstay of this team, putting up hundreds of points with his expansive generalist knowledge and strong individual playing skills. His teammates support his prodigious efforts well, providing that hard part of a bonus when Eric can’t come up with the answer. If a NY NASAT team does happen, I’d expect Eric to put up an excellent performance.

Lehigh Valley: A one-man team, Alex Schmidt, who is somehow a sophomore, has shown himself to be one of the best players of his age in the country, winning the JV National History Bee. And it’s not that he only knows history; Alex is a capable generalist as well, with knowledge spanning many categories. I’m just glad I’ll have graduated when he hits his senior year, because his results should be terrifying.

Mountain Lakes A: Having only played them once, I can’t form very solid conclusions about them, but Ron Mucci is quite good, and seems to contribute most of the scoring for his team, despite his considerable negging (he got the neg prize at LIFT).

High Tech: (I’d like to take a moment and concur with Emmett about how very awkward it is to discuss your own team). We graduated our entire A team of Rohan, Adithya, Julian, and Sharan, who together delivered one of High Tech’s most successful years, so we had quite an immense reputation to live up to this year. I think it’s still a little early to say if we’ve definitively met that objective yet, but we’ve done well so far. Our power percentage and PPB are solid enough, but we do have a bit of a negging problem sometimes. Andrew, Kathryn, and I all know things from various categories, and sophomore Doug has incredibly immense knowledge in history and geography (he particularly excels at NHBB, winning yesterday’s JV History Bee C Set at Princeton against Alex Schmidt of Lehigh Valley), and he’s also constantly learning new things too and improving. Nevertheless, we definitely still have a lot of room for improvement (fewer negs, for example).

Rankings:
1. Bethlehem
2. High Tech A (?)
3. Charter A
4. Hunter A
5. GNS A
6. East Brunswick A
7. Ithaca A
8. Bergen A
9. Livingston A
10. Millburn A
11. Port Jefferson
12. St. Joseph A
13. Mountain Lakes A
14. Lehigh Valley

Not ranked: Delaware Valley/King’s Park/Great Valley/Manheim, as I really don’t know enough about them to make conclusive judgments at this time.

I realize that these rankings can be wrong, and I apologize in advance if anyone has been wrongly ranked, especially if we’ve been over ranked, or if I've omitted anyone. The season isn’t that old yet and many new developments can occur. Additionally, I don’t pretend to be an expert on this area, and admittedly there are quite a few teams I don’t have that much information about, so any feedback/comments would be very welcome.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Monstruos de Bolsillo »

I haven't played all of the teams here, but I'll offer some things I've got, from what I've seen this year.

Bethlehem: We played them at Princeton, first round (great way to start the day) and proceeded to get destroyed. Eric is scary good, and on regular difficulty, he was powering like crazy. The bonus conversion was also very good, helping them even more. At Princeton, they got at least 12 of 20 tossups every single round. I would say he is the best player in the region.

Charter: So this season, we have not faced the true Charter A lineup, but we have plenty of times in the past. Each member can be expected to have great buzzes in each of their categories with consistency, and they are the one team that has terrorized us more than any other. The lower teams are very solid, and seem like they could definitely contribute as the year goes on, and in future years. I think they will continue to improve, and Charter can definitely stake its claim as one of the best in the region, if not a bit higher.

St. Joe's: We played them at Princeton, losing in a close match. They lost Greg to graduation, but they seemed pretty well-balanced, and made the playoffs from our bracket behind Bethlehem. In the playoffs, they won two more games, showing they can contend with the better teams, but were beaten pretty handily by the strongest teams in the area. If the PPB goes up a bit more as well, they could definitely improve their standing.

Ithaca: Ithaca is a younger team, but can play with all the other teams in the region. At King's Park last year, they put up a great showing, and they really impressed me with their knowledge. Casey is really, really good. We had the opportunity to play them (without Daniel) at the Northern Pennsylvania History Bowl in the final, and while our team won, they made some great buzzes. Plus, Casey and Andrey came in 1-2 in the bee, showing their history knowledge. If they come to more tournaments in this area, they will probably be a force.

Lehigh Valley: Alex Schmidt is insanely good. At the Henderson tournament, he finally had some teammates, and proceeded to lose only in the finals on the last tossup against Manheim A. His knowledge is incredibly deep in many areas, especially given his age, and if some of his teammates develop, this team will do some damage. However, right now it is still very much a one-man team, meaning he can drop some easier matches at almost any time if he goes through a cold streak. The power numbers he can put up are quite ridiculous.

Great Valley: GV is about 20 minutes away from us, so we play them in the local circuit from time to time. Last year, their older, more experienced A team lineup actually did not seem to do as well as the younger, new players. One player in particular, Sam Scarfone, has really developed. We played them without Deakon (their other key player) at Charter, and managed a win, but this is not a team we enjoy facing. They seem like they will continue to improve, and maybe at a rapid pace.

Manheim Township: MT is very deep, rivaling many of the NJ teams in terms of B and C teams. In a PA tournament, Manheim C can sometimes be a force. The A team, led by Jake and Ahan, has a lot of experience, and Manheim has many tournament wins to its credit. They are among the top 3 teams in the state of Pennsylvania, and they have a great shot at winning states. It will be interesting to see how they stack up with the elite NJ/NY schools this year.

Delaware Valley: We have never played DV, as they do not come down to as many tournaments, but they are are top 3 PA team. They neg a lot, which can take them out of games, but they also take many impressive wins, and also have a good shot at winnings states. They are getting better as we speak.

Obviously, you guys mentioned most of the other big-name schools in your analyses, but I think State College was never mentioned. They also seem very, very good. They won Mellon Bowl, and did quite well at Princeton. Along with DV and Manheim, SC is the only other team I think has a realistic shot at a state championship for PA. They did lose pretty badly to High Tech A at Princeton, so I definitely want to see them come East more and play the top NJ squads.

There you go, my random thoughts about the teams in the region.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Dirty Water »

Now that my team has played its last major tournament of the regular season, I figured I might as well start the Nats hypetrain.
Here are my predictions of the teams I know (sorry Pennsylvania) who will be in Dallas for the Battle of San HSNCTo.

For reference, the Bergen team will ostensibly consist of:
- Alon Millet
- Rebecca Rosenthal
- David Song
- Zachary Stier

CHAMPIONSHIP CALIBRE

Wilmington Charter A - T-5th/8th
It's hard to evaluate a team when, at its full strength, it blows everyone else out of the water. Quite possibly the strongest team on the eastern seaboard, they get buzzes fast and still manage to :capybara: around and have fun.

UPPER PLAYOFFS

Hunter A - T-21st
Winners of the NYC Metro Championship and a perennial powerhouse, Hunter strikes once again with the one-two punch of Luke and Albert. What's going to hurt this team is a decently large number of negs - the higher your opponent's PPB is, the more negs will damage you. I fully expect Hunter to breeze through much of Sunday morning, but they'll need to brush up on negs to move even closer to the top.

High Tech - T-21st/34th
I've been playing this damn game for five years, and there hasn't been a single season where High Tech failed to win the state title. NAQT distro favours this team, I think (take a look at Doug Simons' ridiculous 25/7/1 stat line at States), and it's certainly one of the most well-rounded teams in the region. However, it dropped an egregious loss to East Brunswick at States, which forced them into a play-in for the finals, in which they beat us only by a tossup. They'll need to keep winning those close games in order to advance deep into the playoffs.

Bergen - T-21st/34th
Late bloomer? The core of our squad this year has actually been in the making since 2013, and now we lost the state championship by a tossup and placed second at Prison Bowl, finishing behind only DCC (although full High Tech and Hunter were not in attendance). No matter what Rebecca says, she's still good enough at NAQT to get 62PPG, on a team that saw me at 46PPG and Alon and Zack at around 22 apiece. We still have a recurring problem with dropping easy games, or at least getting a pretty good scare from B teams - we'll need to be especially careful on Saturday.
EDIT 7 APRIL: There's an opening for a fourth player. Feel free to apply if you are eligible and can help us win games.

GNS A - T-21st/34th
This team is hella annoying, but Allan is good and Lucia is usually gooder. Find better pseudonyms.

MIDDLE PLAYOFFS

East Brunswick A - T-34th/53rd
Solid team that has weathered well the loss of Shravomagne, and Emmett is arguably the strongest individual in the state. But like us, they've had trouble with teams they shouldn't (our B team was quite gleeful to have won a game), so they'll need to keep an eye on that. The true story of the tourney, however, will undoubtedly be Jason's sacrifice to better the fortunes of...

Livingston A - T-34th/53rd
I graduated two years ago, and Sora's the only remaining member of last year's A team. But Howie and Andrew have done well to keep relevance in regional playoffs. Howie's savage. Andrew also understands what it's like to have a quizbowler with the same name. The true story of the tourney, however, will undoubtedly be Sora's sacrifice to better the fortunes of East Brunswick A.

Darien A - T-34th/53rd
ALL HAIL MICHAEL BORECKI - throwback to when i got destroyed 195-625 by this team at msnct2k13
I don't really know what the true makeup of the A team is, but Michael and Julia get enough tossups so that a higher PPB will win them a few more games.

Millburn A - T-53rd
With their very solid PPB, there's a simple algorithm to get this far in the playoffs: buzz more, and get swole like Wesley Hu.

PLAYOFFS?

Charter B
Hunter B
EB B
MCA


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

these evals are obviously made on limited data, so feel free to comment/like/share/hate

also it'd be awesome if you guys could post your tentative rosters so i can make edits accordingly
Last edited by Dirty Water on Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

Collared Scops Owl wrote: Wilmington Charter A - T-5th/8th
It's hard to evaluate a team when, at its full strength, it blows everyone else out of the water. Quite possibly the strongest team on the eastern seaboard, they get buzzes fast and still manage to :capybara: around and have fun.
So to chime in about ourselves a little, we've only played one full tournament with our full A team line-up (Rohan, Jared, Shrayus, and myself) which was MUT at Penn. We've played partial tournaments with this line up (part of Harvard Fall and BMAD). Our team has a good handle on mostly everything but history (seriously, we suck at history). That being said, we're much better at a PACE distribution than an NAQT one so I think a t-5/8 is overrating us a bit, but thanks for having so much faith in us! What will eventually matter in how far we go is if we keep the :party: to a minimum and focus in on the game.
Collared Scops Owl wrote: Charter B
Our B team has yet to field a full lineup this season, but I suspect they'll go 5-5 again this year. I don't doubt that Aditya and Alan can recreate the 7-3 run of Charter B of two years ago, but it's heavily dependent on who they end up playing.

All this being said, our A team consists of four second semester seniors who might end up pulling Varun Wadhwas and mentally checking out from the game before the end of the season...

I think I'll post something similar to the breakdown Dave posted above, but on a night when I've gotten over my addiction to Atomas (thanks Shrayus for getting our entire team addicted to this dumb phone game).
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by High Dependency Unit »

Collared Scops Owl wrote: Darien A - T-34th/53rd
ALL HAIL MICHAEL BORECKI - throwback to when i got destroyed 195-625 by this team at msnct2k13
I don't really know what the true makeup of the A team is, but Michael and Julia get enough tossups so that a higher PPB will win them a few more games.
Our A team is myself, Julia, Andrew Benz, and Brendan Berrigan. Andrew is a solid player at math, trash, and CS, and Brendan is supposed to contribute wherever. They'll both contribute to our ppb. The only tournament we played together was Tri-State Tussle, where we put up good numbers and would've won if I didn't neg 3 times in the final.
Don't forget about NAQT bias either.


I'd bump up EB's projections a bit, as well as High Tech's.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by luke1865 »

I find this projection for Hunter very optimistic, and I think High Tech is a little under ranked.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Votre Kickstarter Est Nul »

Gonna try and continue the hypetrain! I’ll try and cover every team going to nats from the region (second semester = no hw) :)

I’ll try and stratify teams but I won’t do record predictions, mostly, cause Nats is insane and ya never know (@lexington beating DCC and then finishing t-53rd). You’ll also probably realize I have a bad idea of what it takes to make playoffs.

Delaware:

Charter:
A: Charter A can be insanely scary. From what I heard Charter is bringing 6 on A to nats, including Phil and Mabel I believe. Both of those players are good in their own right, but when Charter has its full lineup ((M/R)ohan, Jared, and Shrayus) they put up monster ppbs and power numbers. We’ve played them twice this year, one close, one blowout, and I expect they’ll be around in the late stages of the playoffs at HSNCT. Given their college tourney experience, they’ll scale up very well.

B: I’m guessing here, I don’t really know their roster outside of Aditya and Alan. They’ll be pretty good tho; maybe a playoff team? Mohan said schedule will factor in a lot, I’ll take his word for it. 5-5 is definitely a safe minimum.

New Jersey!!:
High Tech: They’re gonna be awesome, they always are. They have great overlap, making it very hard at times for highly specialized teams to beat them - going up against Doug, Andrew, and Sam on history is a recipe for failure. All 4 players at times go off, Sam, Kathryn, and Doug never neg, and their ppb is awesome. Look for a deep run out of them. As with Charter A, if I tried to give constructive criticism I couldn’t, they’re pretty unequivocally the best team in NJ and alongside Charter for best in the region.

Bergen: Based on just my experience, they scale up to harder teams (idk about sets) well - guess that’s a mindset thing. Their ppbs are nice, they’re a team similar to HT in their composition (4 players all able to get all subjects at times). I’ll be curious to see how they do against some highly specialized teams, especially on history and literature, at Nats given its difficulty increase.

East Brunswick:
A: We have a tendency to shut down at times; while most good teams will pull thru in a scare we occasionally crap the bed (Bergen B, Smithtown West, etc). Kinda can’t do that at Nats :/ We’re very specialized but we have to shore up RMP a good bit. Given NAQT distribution as long as Anand and I get CE/Geo and we don’t have a bad mentality and just chill I think we can do pretty well. (btw David our roster is Me, Anand, (J/M)ason)

B: Gowtham, Derek, Alice, and Cam, and whoever else we bring, should be able to do pretty well. It’ll be interesting to see how they scale up, and Gowtham needs to reign in the negging - the rest of the team hardly negs. They have basically no lit, a problem that will only get worse on nats level lit. H/CE/Geo is pretty good, as is science and art. They need to be focused and at the top of their game to shore up the huge lit gap; hopefully they sneak into the playoffs. It’ll largely depend on matchups and not dropping silly games.

Livingston:
A: Sora is probably gonna cry at the distribution, but she’s got lit and FA down pat as one of the best at it that I’ve played; they’ll do well there. Howie is a pretty good history player, as is Daniel for science. They will definitely make the playoffs, but with the diminished lit/FA on NAQT, they don’t tend to scale up against top history teams who can wreck the history/geo/ce which at times makes up almost half of an NAQT packets.

B: I don’t really know who is on Livingston B for nats, but with Chris, Jonathan, Alice, etc they have a pretty good potential roster guessing from stats. Guessing off that, history and science should be alright, not sure if they have a B team lit player. Don’t know if they’re playoff material, but you never know they made top 200 for morlan, put up nice ppbs, and tend to be pretty deep. Depending who the roster is, playoffs wouldn’t surprise me.

MAST: I don’t really know anything about them. Their coach, I forget his name so I call him John Lithgow, is such a nice guy, and their players are really nice. I don’t seem them doing well though. Post-Reuben days ain’t been as fun.

MCA: Jabez, Shree, and co do a pretty good job of putting up ~20 ppb and making playoffs. They’re super nice kids, and they’ll probably make playoffs. Lit is weak for them, and I don’t know how they will scale up given their relatively new roster (i.e they only started playing more often this year).

Millburn:
A: Millburn A is in Livingston’s range, aka why they have a friendly rivalry. They’re strongest in Science, but their history is pretty good. I don’t really know if they have lit outside of general coverage by the team overall. Playoff team for sure, but probably not a super long run. A specialized team is likely their trouble spot, especially a team, like with Livingston, that can body the history/ce/geo. As with Livingston, they’re almost definitely a multiple playoff game team.
B: I’m sure they’ll be pretty good; Millburn’s program is pretty deep. Probably a 4-6 type team though.

NY: No Eric?!?!?!?
Hunter:
A: lol. Luke is very good and clearly has worked hard to be a generalist with a strong history strength. I’m sure NAQT distribution will cater well to him, and I expect a pretty deep run. It’ll be interesting to see how they handle teams with legitimate lit specialists as well as a history player that can rival Luke - if those players can steal enough from Luke they may be vulnerable.

B: Daniel Ma is Luke 2.0. Given that its mostly just him from what I’ve seen I don’t know if they’re playoff caliber - they may get bodied in every other category. I don’t really know much about them though, I could be way off base.

Kellenberg: All Matt York. I don’t see Post-Joe Levano Kellenberg making the playoffs, but they certainly won’t be bad.

GNS: They’re interesting to say the least. Their team dynamic is a bit, vitriolic, at times, but they have pretty good literature and history knowledge. They seem to play better than their statistics at times and beat good teams (Eric twice now); we’ve only played them once this year so I don’t have a great impression of them but I expect they’ll do well but might be vulnerable to top history/science teams. Barely know what I’m talking about here though; I’m sure they’ll make a pretty good run.

PA (I’ll just do the three I know):
Manheim A/B: Don’t really know much, but they seem pretty good. Short playoff run seems like what will happen? Jake and Ahan seem good, but I don’t know much. B seems also to be pretty good, but I don’t know anything about them.

Great Valley: They seem pretty decent, we played them twice at Quaker Fall and they seem to be pretty good. 6-5 or 5-5 seems likely.

Friends Select: Anand and I played them at MUT and other than that haven’t seen them. The game wasn’t really a good way to get a grasp of what they know but they don’t seem particularly strong, though they also won’t be stepped on. Don’t really seem like a playoff team.

In case you can’t tell I think everyone is gonna make playoffs, so take my predictions with a grain of salt. Hopefully my analyses are alright, their somewhat postulated and somewhat based on a game or two against some of these teams so who knows if I’m right. I’ll take a crack at stratifying teams:
Top tier: Charter A, High Tech
Potentially long run tier??? Idk what a long run even is: Bergen, GNS, EB A, Hunter A
Good in playoffs tier: Manheim A, Livingston A, Millburn A
Will probably make playoffs tier: MCA
Alright chance of playoffs: Charter B, EB B, Hunter B, Great Valley, Manheim B, Livingston B
Decent but no playoffs tier: Kellenberg, Millburn B
Not really sure but probably lower: MAST, Friends Select

I tried! This is way too long my b. I think the Northeast will kill it at nats :) Critique, respond, etc it’s fun to discuss this kind of stuff.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Monstruos de Bolsillo »

Since no one seems to really know much about Pennsylvania teams, I'll offer some information. PA quizbowl is growing, and there are a lot more teams attending nationals this year. While obviously not as strong as NY/NJ, the circuit seems to be pretty healthy, and some of the new teams are quite impressive.

Manheim Township: They are the deepest team in the state, and have great specialist knowledge. They've pretty much been the class of the state, and should have the highest finish at nats. The A team with Jake, Ahan, Shayar, and Garret, when they've played together, have done quite a bit of damage, with each specializing. They have played most recent tournaments with split teams, and have still won, showing what each individual player can do. Manheim B is always a solid squad, capable of hanging tough with tough opponents. At HSNCT last year, both A and B went 6-5.

Great Valley: So we've played them at almost every tournament we went to this year. They have two key players, Sam and Deakon, who do most of their damage. They haven't had their full lineup together all that often, but they are improving rapidly. We were not at Quaker Fall this year, but they were up on Charter A with two questions to go, with Charter needing to power and 30 both questions, which they did. They can hang around with tough opponents, and even beat them. One problem for them does seem to be negging. They negged 36 times in 11 games @ Henderson in November, and 34 times in 9 games @ Manheim last month. That, obviously, will hurt them against tough opponents when every mistake matters.

Friends Select: We played them at GV in February, and we beat them. They are new this year, but have been accelerating at a rapid pace. I actually don't know too much else about them, other than that they seem to be getting good really fast.

Henderson: That's us. We have had some mixed results this year, but have been steadily improving. We won Manheim in December, and have improved since then. However, we need to do a lot more work on scaling up to higher difficulties, as well as playing in a less volatile manner. We cut down on the negs last tournament, and hopefully we will continue to do so. If we stay focused and continue getting better, we should have a good time at HSNCT.

Lehigh Valley: Alex Schmidt is really, really good. He also has teammates now. However, he still gets pretty much all the tossups. He wrecks through everyone in the prelims, but it seems that, in most tournaments, good teams can handle him in the playoffs. His generalism is overshadowed by the specialists, and it leads to some really good, but not amazing finishes. However, he is only a sophomore, so we'll see how he improves over the next two years.

Cedar Crest: Pretty solid team from Lancaster County. They have nationals experience, and are always a tough out at PA tournaments. Problem is, they have yet to travel out of state to play a tournament, so we'll have to see how they stack up with the tougher teams that are found in NY/NJ and MD/DC/VA. Another thing I noticed is that the rarely neg, but they also rarely power. Their scoresheet is usually filled up with 10s. This hurts them. At Manheim, we were playing them in the finals and were down by 250 at halftime and came back to win. We did a similar thing to them at Manheim Spring, which we came back from like 240 after TU 13. They need to make sure they don't blow leads come May. Oh, and they are also sending a B team as well.

That's pretty much it from the Eastern part of the state. The other teams of note from the East are Delaware Valley, who don't seem to have played much this year (but are obviously very strong), and I don't think are going to HSNCT (maybe NSC?), as well as PALCS, who have a NASAT team member and impact player in Gianni. There are some teams of note out in the Western part of the state as well. State College is the main player out there, but Winchester Thurston is also very good. Other contenders include Alagar Homeschool.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by luke1865 »

The only thing that I really disagree with in Emmett's analysis is what he had to say about our B team. I think Daniel is bit different from me in that he has more strength in science and less in lit. B team will have Chloe, though, so I doubt that they will get bodied outside of Hist/Geo. What remains to be seen from them imo is how well they will scale to higher level sets.
A broader point that I would be curious to see people discuss as we approach nationals is the distinction between teams that take a more stock-based approach to study vs. teams that study in different ways. It seems to me that the conventional wisdom is that stock studying doesn't scale well to higher level sets (like nationals). What do people think about this?
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Edward Powers »

Congrats to Hunter for a fabulous HSNCT Championship, and to all the other regional teams who played so excellently---Charter, EB, GNS, High Tech, Bergen, Millburn, Livingston, Kellenberg--- and to Lexington, AMSA, Darien and Manheim, who often visit and compete in our region. I hope I did not forget anyone. Clearly this region was as strong as any in the country, as the final results indicate. Kudos to all, and especially to our National Championship neighbors over at Hunter High!
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

I second Ed's congratulations to Luke and his Hunter teammates. It's been a pleasure watching those guys get stronger and stronger over the past few years. Same to all of the teams in our region that went and, in most cases, finished well ahead of their pre-tournament rankings...
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by kitkat »

Antrobus63 wrote:in most cases, finished well ahead of their pre-tournament rankings...
This is probably (most likely) directed toward us, as the northeast as a whole did very well this weekend. I felt we were overranked for the majority of the season, and the pre-national rank was much more accurate. This also reflects the fact that the current iteration of High Tech A does not scale up as well as previous teams (Rohan / Adithya come to mind), which can be seen in our unusually high neg rates. The expectations after last year also definitely caught up to us, since for the last three years, each successive team has improved upon the previous year's finish (t-33 in 2013, t-13 in 2014, t-8 in 2015).

In close games, we have a tendency to psyche ourselves out if things go down to the last question, as evidenced by our playoff loses to Hinsdale (tied with 1:27 remaining) and Wayzata (leading by 5 going into the last question). For next week, we definitely need to focus on finishing strong and not blowing leads in the second half.

Congrats to Hunter for winning HSNCT, Charter for having a hell of a run after going 6-4 in the prelims, East Brunswick, Bergen, GNS, Livingston, Millburn, Manheim, Lexington, Darien, AMSA, Kellenberg, and all the other teams for a wonderful tournament. Looking forward to PACE!
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

Not at all, Kathryn! To be honest, I wasn't even thinking about you guys when I wrote that. I was just happy that many of the Mid-Atlantic teams who were underrated going into Nationals did much better than they were expected to. I used "in most cases" as a blanket to cover our region, especially Pennsylvania schools who have improved a great deal over the past two years but have not been taken very seriously.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

First off, congrats to Luke and the entire Hunter squad for an amazing nationals victory. I've really enjoyed playing some intense matches against you throughout this season and I'm really happy to see a championship trophy come home to the Northeast. Congrats to every other Northeast team in attendance for what was truly an amazing overall finish for our region. I'm going to miss playing against all of you. I'm looking forward to getting to observe a super competitive season next year with several top squads returning a decent portion of their players (Hunter, GNS, High Tech - I'm looking at you). Best of luck to everyone who is attending PACE and all returning players!
kitkat wrote:Charter for having a hell of a run after going 6-4 in the prelims
Thanks, Kathryn. I'm just happy we could keep our season going just a bit longer after realizing we were one game away from not being "Wilmington Charter" anymore on Sunday.
FloppyBird wrote:
Lo, Marathon Ham! wrote:Finally, Rohan Narayan is improving at a rapid pace. I wouldn't be surprised if he lay claims to best player in science, history, geography, and RMP by mid-season of next year.
I have no idea where my teammate got this idea, as my summer is pretty much booked by a trip to India and University of Delaware internship....please disregard the above quotation, as there is absolutely no way that is happening.
On another and final note, congrats on becoming an amazing player Roe. It was an honor to play with you and I guess I was mostly right on my prediction in the end (except for history, which we still notably suck at). I'm gonna miss you tons man. I couldn't have asked for a better teammate and a cooler person to play second fiddle to (although I'll never let you forget we went back and forth in scoring until you evolved from Floppy Roe into Papa Roe in late February :lol:) . Good luck at UD next year!
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by SHP Pirate »

After a two-year hiatus, Seton Hall Prep will be returning to the circuit next year. Please include us on any and all announcements as they arise.

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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by cchiego »

SHP Pirate wrote:After a two-year hiatus, Seton Hall Prep will be returning to the circuit next year. Please include us on any and all announcements as they arise.
This is great to hear! Hopefully the NJ circuit will be even more vibrant next year too with the Seton Hall Prep teams back on the circuit.

Speaking of NJ, I've been looking up NJ schools again as I update our contact lists at Penn and I'm once again amazed at how full NJ is of schools that play some kind of buzzer-based competition, yet don't play pyramidal quizbowl. Some of this is indeed the infamous "Modified Jeopardy" and the thing known as "BRITE" but others seem to be more akin to typical non-pyramidal quizbowl, especially in the Southern parts of NJ.

I've just finished a sweep through all schools south of New Brunswick and found a large number of schools (something like 60+) that have an academic team of some kind and a number of new leagues that I didn't know about before. I sent out mailers last year to about 30 of these schools (which didn't get much of a direct response; more on that below), but I keep finding new leagues, tournaments and teams with some kind of infrastructure in place to attend more tournaments with at least one (often two) coaches. While a few have attended a few pyramidal events occasionally, many still haven't played a single pyramidal tournament (including History Bowl) in recent memory.

For leagues, right now I have:
South Jersey Academic Challenge League (10 schools--QUnlimited--wow Chip's questions are worse than ever)
Somerset County Academic League (10 schools?)
Burlington County Knowledge Bowl (6 schools?)
DuPont Academic League (Salem County) (4 schools? )

A number of other schools compete in some long-running tournaments, including one at Monsignor Donovan, the BRITE thing, and some at community colleges. Several of these tournaments are notably sponsored by car dealerships and have fairly large cash prizes as well as high entry fees. There are also an even more dizzying array of Middle School events out there that I won't even try to start with here.

So I have a request to all the NJ quizbowl teams here on this board: You probably see a lot of students from these schools at other academic competitions and such; please invite them to quizbowl tournaments and drum up interest in quizbowl! Invite them to your tournaments if you're hosting them and help them prepare for the competition with all the resources that good quizbowl has to improve! Andrew Ibendahl had a good post about this lack of outreach to these kinds of teams a few years back. It seems more an issue of a lack of information and haphazard organization than anything else.

But what also seems to happen all too often is that a handful of these schools show up at a quizbowl tournament dominated by experienced pyramidal teams that blow them off the buzzers because NJ tournaments tend to get a lot of experienced schools and only a few of these new schools. I would encourage hosts in NJ next year to considering running a novice tournament or at least have a novice division designed solely for these new schools and freshmen/novices from more experienced pyramidal schools.

It would be great if some of the pyramidal coaches or the fine folks at Princeton and/or Rutgers could help set up some kind of solid organization for NJ since right now there isn't a good clearinghouse of information about competitions in New Jersey other than the scattered posts on this site, which I doubt most schools check.

I was also curious about something I heard from a NJ team last year when I invited them to Penn's fall tournament using mailers--apparently they need to get permission well in advance for any out-of-state tournaments from their school board? If that's the case more broadly across NJ, it's all the more reason for hosts to get organized and send out invitations earlier.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by lumosityfan »

cchiego wrote:
SHP Pirate wrote:After a two-year hiatus, Seton Hall Prep will be returning to the circuit next year. Please include us on any and all announcements as they arise.
This is great to hear! Hopefully the NJ circuit will be even more vibrant next year too with the Seton Hall Prep teams back on the circuit.

Speaking of NJ, I've been looking up NJ schools again as I update our contact lists at Penn and I'm once again amazed at how full NJ is of schools that play some kind of buzzer-based competition, yet don't play pyramidal quizbowl. Some of this is indeed the infamous "Modified Jeopardy" and the thing known as "BRITE" but others seem to be more akin to typical non-pyramidal quizbowl, especially in the Southern parts of NJ.

I've just finished a sweep through all schools south of New Brunswick and found a large number of schools (something like 60+) that have an academic team of some kind and a number of new leagues that I didn't know about before. I sent out mailers last year to about 30 of these schools (which didn't get much of a direct response; more on that below), but I keep finding new leagues, tournaments and teams with some kind of infrastructure in place to attend more tournaments with at least one (often two) coaches. While a few have attended a few pyramidal events occasionally, many still haven't played a single pyramidal tournament (including History Bowl) in recent memory.

For leagues, right now I have:
South Jersey Academic Challenge League (10 schools--QUnlimited--wow Chip's questions are worse than ever)
Somerset County Academic League (10 schools?)
Burlington County Knowledge Bowl (6 schools?)
DuPont Academic League (Salem County) (4 schools? )

A number of other schools compete in some long-running tournaments, including one at Monsignor Donovan, the BRITE thing, and some at community colleges. Several of these tournaments are notably sponsored by car dealerships and have fairly large cash prizes as well as high entry fees. There are also an even more dizzying array of Middle School events out there that I won't even try to start with here.

So I have a request to all the NJ quizbowl teams here on this board: You probably see a lot of students from these schools at other academic competitions and such; please invite them to quizbowl tournaments and drum up interest in quizbowl! Invite them to your tournaments if you're hosting them and help them prepare for the competition with all the resources that good quizbowl has to improve! Andrew Ibendahl had a good post about this lack of outreach to these kinds of teams a few years back. It seems more an issue of a lack of information and haphazard organization than anything else.

But what also seems to happen all too often is that a handful of these schools show up at a quizbowl tournament dominated by experienced pyramidal teams that blow them off the buzzers because NJ tournaments tend to get a lot of experienced schools and only a few of these new schools. I would encourage hosts in NJ next year to considering running a novice tournament or at least have a novice division designed solely for these new schools and freshmen/novices from more experienced pyramidal schools.

It would be great if some of the pyramidal coaches or the fine folks at Princeton and/or Rutgers could help set up some kind of solid organization for NJ since right now there isn't a good clearinghouse of information about competitions in New Jersey other than the scattered posts on this site, which I doubt most schools check.

I was also curious about something I heard from a NJ team last year when I invited them to Penn's fall tournament using mailers--apparently they need to get permission well in advance for any out-of-state tournaments from their school board? If that's the case more broadly across NJ, it's all the more reason for hosts to get organized and send out invitations earlier.
I just wanted to answer Chris' question about the fact that yes, most schools do need a lot of time from their school board to approve out-of-state trips. (I know because I was from one of those districts :cry: It would take the school over a month just to approve the trip EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING WAS SET UP BY THE ACADEMIC TEAM. Which basically helped ruin my high school quizbowl career.) Also stating my support for Chris' post to talk to these schools, because the schools would be very willing to compete in quizbowl competitions if only they knew about it. Get the word out!
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Joshua Rutsky »

Is there anyone here from Wilmington Friends School in Delaware? I have a question for them.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by monty »

Any predictions for the upcoming season?
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by elyne road »

monty wrote:Any predictions for the upcoming season?
I guess I could take a shot at this. Here's a few of the teams I would look out for this season, in no particular order. This is by no means a comprehensive list.

Hunter A
Hunter retains three of the four scorers from both the HSNCT title defending squad and their 11th place PACE NSC finish. While they graduate their top scorer, Luke, Daniel Ma is perhaps the perfect replacement, and adds in some science coverage to help his teammate Abhishrant to lock the category down. Between Chloe and Sam,all of literature is covered, and Sam's prowess in trash will serve to continue their dominance in NAQT tournaments. Still curious to see how they will perform in housewrites, but judging from their performance at HFT without Luke, they should continue to perform well. Barring any issues with tournament attendance, Hunter will likely thrive throughout the season and is a definite contender at nationals once again.

High Tech A
Even if High Tech loses Samuel Kao, they keep players with some of the deepest knowledge in their respective categories. Perhaps the scariest of these players is Doug Simons, who will remain their power player in History and Geo. From my experience playing against High Tech A at East Brunswick Funfest in February, Michael Li and Steven Liu will continue to improve and be huge threats to anybody aspiring to win a tournament in New Jersey. Michael especially will play a key role in getting decisive tossups in Fine Arts and Myth. Between the three of these players and a strong array of rising juniors, High Tech will continue to perform well in New Jersey, maybe suffering from a slight rebuilding phase in the first few months of the season. Their rivalry with Hunter will continue to excite fellow competitors in region.

Kellenberg A
Perhaps the most underrated team going into this season, Kellenberg A continues to improve at a rapid pace and will look to compete with Hunter and Great Neck South as one of the best teams in New York. Evan will be their main scorer, and specializes in Geography, History and Fine Arts. Evan will gain support in Science from Aidan, and the partnership between the two will account for most of their scoring this season. I have limited knowledge of their performance in housewrites besides HFT, but this is another team which excels in the NAQT distribution, and definitely one to watch out for.

Wilmington Charter
I am looking forward to seeing the difference between my predictions and the results we will achieve. We graduate every member of last year's A team besides myself, and retain all of our B team. Our A team will likely have a variable composition throughout the season, but Waley and I will likely attend most of the tournaments. Between the two of us, we should cover most of Science and History. Amelia will continue to be our Literature and Mythology specialist, and Tomasz will serve as our History and Geo specialist. I guess I'm a science specialist with okay knowledge in REMPP. Our results will mainly depend on how much we dedicate ourselves to studying.

Lehigh Valley Academy
Alex Schmidt has already proven his capability as an individual over the past several years through his performances at NASAT, SSNCT, as well as both PACE and HSNCT last season. If his teammates can provide him with more support, then there is no doubt in my mind that Lehigh can contend for a few tournament wins against Hunter and High Tech. It is crucial for teams like Alex's to improve both tournament attendance and team contribution, especially at harder tournaments nearing nationals. However, if victories against last year's Ithaca and High Tech teams are representative of capability, LVA will continue to challenge for the title of best team in the region, and best team in Pennsylvania.

Great Valley
If there's a team that can compete with LVA for the title of best in (eastern) Pennsylvania, it's Great Valley. Both Sam and Daniel have shown their capabilities in the region, against some of its strongest teams. Since they have been competing together for the past few years at this point, they will likely continue to play well in the region, and hopefully cause a few upsets against teams higher in Morlan Rank, as the are certainly capable of it.

Downingtown STEM
If there's a team that can contradict my last statement about (eastern) Pennsylvania, it's Downingtown STEM. Retaining every player from last season, they will continue to thrive at tournaments in the region under the leadership of generalist Vishwa with strong support from Anish. Did I mention they only started playing tournaments regularly in January? Biggest weakness is negs, but with discipline, this team can pull victories from nothing.

Darien
Scary. Even without Michael Borecki. Scary. Do not count out a team composed of past MSNCT champions. You have been warned.

Other teams I would look out for include East Brunswick, Bard, Livingston, and St Joseph's. I am not the most qualified person, but I think that this is a decent outline of teams to watch out for. Good luck to all teams in the region! I'm looking forward to playing against many of you at PHSAT and other tournaments.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

I just submitted my coaches' poll ballot, so I have thought about this a bit. Overall, the region is not as strong this year--certainly not at the outset. Mostly, I agree with Sohum about individual teams, but I'll add just a bit about teams that I saw a lot of last year:

Hunter is still the team to beat. Luke was a great player, but Daniel brings almost exactly the same skill set to his team; like Luke, he is an experienced power machine in both history and geography--and, unlike some B-team stars--has experience at the highest levels of competition, in both QB and NHBB. The difference between the two guys is personality. Luke was clearly the boss and drove his teammates hard; for better or worse (perhaps a little of both), I can't picture Daniel, or anyone else at Hunter, trying to assume that role. So, while senior-itis may set in a bit for Hunter, their vast playing experience will probably compensate. They have an excellent chance to win HSNCT again and perhaps, with another year's experience under their belt, a better shot at winning PACE.

I think LVA is the second-best team in the East. I honestly don't know how much better Alex will be this year but, even with the inevitable senior-itis that will take a toll on him, based on his previous numbers and another year of experience he should be able to carry us into the Top Ten. I liked Alex's teammates a lot, personally, but while they improved from the fall to February, they didn't give much support at the end of the year; again, the dreaded senior-itis. I am starting with a whole new bunch now (a handful of LVA kids from 4th to 10th grade), so you would think that there's no help this year... but I am cautiously optimistic that we may able to get 10-20 ppg out of this bunch, which could drastically alter our fortunes at the end of the year. We'll see.

I expect High Tech to be a just little weaker than they were last year. Sam Kao was a very experienced player who had a lot of general knowledge. Anjali covered lit, science and some other stuff. Losing both will really hurt. Doug is one of the country's best players in both history and geography and will continue to improve (which alone makes High Tech a Top 25 team) but, so far, he has shown little interest in other areas. The science player, Steven Liu (I think?), is a very bright guy, so I expect his numbers to go up a lot as he gains more knowledge in his classes, both HS and College-level. My gut tells me that he will be one of the top handful of science players in the country for the next two years. So, if High Tech can get some humanities help, who knows?

I didn't put Darien in my Top 25, but believe that they will end up there. They have Julia Tong, Jonathan Phipps, and a bunch of other up-and-comers, so they should be very competitive.

Lexington didn't play together as a whole team all that much last year but, when they got together, were championship contenders. They lost Colin and another starter, so I don't know what to make of them yet. My guess is that they will find a way to be a Top 25-30 team by the end of the year.

I don't have Wilmington Charter in my Top 25 because they didn't place that high last year and lost a number of players. Also, I don't think think being so aggressive, which is Wilmington's general style, works out over the long haul: Sohum is very ambitious, has been active a lot on on-line and studying a bunch, and will be joined by some solid players, so maybe they can bludgeon their way to some top finishes.

Kellenberg should be pretty good, but I haven't seen them much in person over the past two years. I'll have a close up look at them at our tournament next month.

Here in Pennsylvania, we have three possible Top 25 teams: Great Valley (if they can overcome their negs), Downingtown STEM (tons of talent but not as much experience as other national-level teams), and Alagar Homeschool. I did not put the Alagars in my own Top 25, but believe they have the potential to be a great, Top 15 team. On Intro sets, where Rajan piles up tons of points, I think the Alagars are probably better than anyone else in the East except Hunter. Things change a lot as the difficulty rises, though: Jaya's strengths as a high-level NHBB player and arts specialist become more important and, conversely, the lack of QB experience starts to show up for the other Alagars. Depending on the packet, though, the Alagars could beat almost anyone in the country. If they decide to play more QB tournaments this year... watch out!

P.S. St Joe's might be very good... but I don't know how old their kids are.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Couch's Kingbird »

Just to add on a bit about Darien- while obviously we lose Michael, we've got some very talented and ambitious up and coming players and I hope we'll improve over the course of the season. It's also certainly not going to be all returning MMS MSNCT champions. Out of the A team, we return Riya Krishnan and I- I think I'm a pretty decent lit player, and Riya has been putting in some time to try to get some bio/chem under control. We've also got two very talented history/geography players in John Phipps and Alex Delvecchio, who will compete for a spot on the A team, as well as Skyler Bennet, Iman Onbargi, and my brother Evan as possible fourth scorers. Maya Nalawade will be captaining the B team as well.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by elyne road »

I did not mean to exclude you in my analysis of Darien, Julia. I apologize for the confusion.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War »

I'm going to be a bit more cautious here and say that I have a history of severe inconsistency in the regular season, especially on housewrites, so I think we'll have some trouble on those, as has been said.
As for leadership, I can't really comment on that, since as of now, I'm neither the captain nor the president...well, I guess that is a comment, but not a meaningful one. We'll see how IS sets go at PHSAT!

EDIT: I'm not going to be at PHSAT, and neither is Sam, so this will NOT be representative of our full A team.
Last edited by Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War on Sat Sep 23, 2017 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NY/NJ/DE/surrounding area discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

You are a stone-cold killer, Daniel Ma, and you know it.
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