NY/NJ/CT/PA/DE Discussion '22-23

[curiousmind34]

HSNCT is in just over a month, and I realized today that there has not really been any forums discussion this year talking about team strengths and comparisons. There have been plenty of tournaments this year, so hopefully we have enough information to make somewhat-accurate rankings and judgements on teams. I don't really know how to set up a poll, but I would be interested in voting and the results if somebody sets one up.

[DragonSM]

Northeast poll link here.

Results will be posted at some point once there's enough responses.
For the purposes of this poll any team from any New England state, NY, NJ, PA, or DE is considered part of the northeast.

I'll post more of my detailed thoughts on the circuit at some point later.

[curiousmind34]

Here are some teams I think you guys should consider before voting:

Belmont is probably the best active team in the New England circuit Cindy Gao is probably the best literature player in the whole region. The team seems to be better at mACF and scales well, I would expect them to do quite well at PACE.

Cedar Crest has a 37-3 record this season (!) (as of the most recent hbranks), showing their dominance in the PA circuit. Danny Peelen often gets around 6 P/G on IS sets and his teammates also contribute over 1 P/G.

Chenery is probably the best middle school team in the country, and even a solid team at the high school level. Andrew Gao and Gregory Zeldovich are extremely impressive for MSers, putting up 25 and 22 powers at HFT, respectively.

Choate is another team to watch out for. They had 71 powers on Prison Bowl and 65 powers at HFT, both regs+ sets. Joy An and Nathan Nicholas specifically have been scoring well, but Choate has quite a few players that can perform well at a national level.

Darien is team you should consider (and not just because I am trying to shill my team). We have the best Science player in the region (and perhaps in the country), Darryl Wang. Darien is also decently well rounded with coverage on History and Literature. Darien had 8.6 P/G at Livingston March Madness on IS-219. Also, shoutout to Darien B for being one of the best (if not the best) b teams in the region.

Downingtown STEM is an impressive team with several good players, including its usual top scorer Ryan Smith, Yaduraj Choudhary, and Saptak Das. They defeated teams including WWPN and Livingston to win EB Funfest.

Hunter is a team that has historically been the best in the region. They kept 3/4 players from their 2nd Place HSNCT 2022 team (although Andrew Zeng scored a lot and graduated), and this year have been winning plenty of tournaments in the region. The combination of Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt and Ian Lu makes it one of the best teams nationally on history and current events, but I would expect plenty of powers from all players on the team, as Hunter is a program with many solid players.

Ithaca often travels over three hours to reach a tournament, showing impressive dedication. Owen Mimno and Julian Bushlow both are good players, beating teams like High Tech and Belmont (which might not have been full) as a duo at CORG3, getting over 2 p/g each and over 22 PPB on SHOW-ME there.

J.P Stevens has rarely played full this year, but in only September at PHSAT they got over 8 powers per game and 24 PPB on an IS-set, and at EB Prenats they defeated Hunter and DCDS, two of the top teams in the country. They are one of the most balanced teams, with Kushal Aluru, Hassan Rizwan, Nishanth Bhargava and Sophia Pan all scoring 45 points or more in at least one round at EB Pre-nationals tournament.

Livingston is quite a good team, and notably has largest HS program in the whole region. It's hard to avoid discussing Robert Wang when the topic of Livingston comes up, he is a cracked history based generalist (especially for only being a sophomore), consistently winning top scorer awards at tournaments.

Staples is another team you should consider on your poll. It is led by Aalok Bhattacharya, a history based generalist who put up nearly 5 p/g on a split team at CORG3. Also, shoutout to him for more neg prizes than anybody I have ever known /j

Wilton continues to be a great team in the region, led by Lukas Koutsoukos, a history based generalist. The team put up 6 p/g on IS-219 at Livi Marmad and I would expect them to do quite well at nationals this year.

Woodland is a great team that I think a lot of people didn't see coming. They are definitely the best small school in the region, and just one of those teams that keeps improving more and more throughout the year. Evan Lin is their literature based generalist and a very solid player. Also, like Ithaca, shoutout to their dedication, consistently showing up to tournaments even when they are 2 hours away from their school.

WWPN is a team that has improved a lot in the past year. I remember playing them at Garden Cup in May 2022, and then Valley Cup in January 2023, and being surprised at how strong the team has become. Eshan Pant has went from getting 14 powers on an IS-level set to 37 powers on SCT DII (!) covering mostly lit, and Aldric Benalan has also scaled very well in the past year.

I probably missed at least a couple of teams, but I would say that all these teams would be worthy of receiving your vote.

[DragonSM]

A couple poll updates, the poll will close some tbd time on the evening of May 7th.

And a couple useful things for people who have not yet submitted polls, the following is a list of northeast teams by Groger rank, and also attached is the most recent update to hbranks as of tournaments from April 22nd. Additionally if anyone has any shoutout or analysis posts that they would like to make in the thread those are more than welcome!

Additionally if anyone who has already submitted a poll wants to replace their old poll response feel free to send a new one and I will only use the most recent response.

7 Belmont A (MA) 103.82
12 Hunter A (NY) 100.13
17 John P. Stevens A (NJ) 98.78
39 Darien A (CT) 88.85
42 Livingston A (NJ) 87.86
49 Cedar Crest A (PA) 86.88
53 Woodland A (CT) 84.70
58 West Windsor-Plainsboro North A (NJ) 82.22
62 Choate A (CT) 81.53
69 Chenery Middle A (MA) 79.28
72 Wilton A (CT) 78.61
75 High Tech A (NJ) 78.21
77 Wissahickon A (PA) 77.53
82 Belmont B (MA) 76.90 (not real, is chenery bhs hybrid from kickoff and then not full A-team from corg3)
87 Downingtown STEM A (PA) 76.42
94 Princeton High A (NJ) 76.10
99 East Brunswick A (NJ) 75.44
101 Staples A (CT) 75.07
102 Ithaca A (NY) 74.70
109 Wilmington Charter A (DE) 73.33
119 Great Valley A (PA) 71.84
122 Princeton High B (NJ) 71.50
123 Buckingham A (MA) 71.37

[DragonSM]

Poll results are in, and here they are:
1. Hunter A: 8 first place votes, 106 points, average ranking of 1.38, ranked in 13/13 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 2 (dropped)
2. Belmont A: 2 first place votes, 96 points, average ranking of 2.31, ranked in 13/13 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 4 (dropped)
3. JP Stevens A: 3 first place votes, 89 points, average ranking of 3, ranked in 13/13 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 6 (dropped)
4. Darien A: 79 points, average ranking of 3.69, ranked in 13/13 ballots, highest vote: 2 (dropped), lowest vote: 4 (dropped)
5. Livingston A: 48 points, average ranking of 6.54, ranked in 13/13 ballots, highest vote: 3 (dropped), lowest vote: 9 (dropped)
6. Choate A: 45 points, average ranking of 6, ranked in 11/13 ballots, highest vote: 3 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
7. Cedar Crest A: 41 points, average ranking of 6.64, ranked in 11/13 ballots, highest vote: 5 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
8. Woodland A: 28 points, average ranking of 7.11, ranked in 9/13 ballots, highest vote: 6 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
9. WWPN A: 23 points, average ranking of 8.45, ranked in 11/13 ballots, highest vote: 7 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
10. Ithaca A: 13 points, average ranking of 8.43, ranked in 7/13 ballots, highest vote: 7 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
Also receiving votes: Wilton A (10 points), Staples A (0), Chenery A (0), East Brunswick A (0), Hastings A (0), Downingtown Stem A (0), High Tech A (0), Wilmington Charter A (0).

For anyone interested a link is here.

[Antrobus63]

Would anyone be interested in a summer tournament, here in Allentown, sort of like an Open format but for HS people--perhaps an abbreviated a single event, with a few things? If so, just say so here. If there seems like enough interest, I'll post a date survey.