Southern California (CA) 2015 - 2016 Discussion

[Lo, a momentary rabbit-stage]

Howdy, y'all.

This thread will be used for discussion and predictions about the future of the Southern California teams in the 2015-2016 season. It's part of the effort to shift the focus of the SoCal discussion from the more insulated mediums we currently have onto a platform that can be seen by the whole quiz bowl world. Now that SoCal has gained some more notoriety with the crowning of Arcadia A as HSNCT 2015 champions, it's probably a good idea for the rest of quiz bowl to know a little bit more about us.

I'll be posting my own thoughts in a separate post so as to avoid clogging of the OP.

[Stinkweed Imp]

My (likely incorrect) predictions for next year. I'll include the members of each team (from HSNCT/PACE rosters + other people I know about) that are returning next year, but if I get somebody's grade wrong please correct me.

Arcadia
Retains: Matt Forster, Hamlin Liu, David Zhang, Xiaoke Ying, Jacob Glass, Joshua Jen
Predictions: Arcadia seems to be weakened most for the 2015-2016 season, but their teams stays surprisingly strong. Freshmen Xiaoke Ye and Matt Forester combined for 20/26/6 at HSNCT, and were crucial in several upsets that led to Arcadia C finishing t-21, and they still have experience in Joshua Jen

Westivew
Retains: Rahul Keyal, Chaitanya Kore, Shivank Nayak
Westview loses top scorer and NAQT-expert Kevin Li but retains three very good young players from their A team, as well as other people I don't remember.

Rancho Bernardo
Retains: Kion You, HoWon Choo, Bryan Ugaz, Omar El-Sabrout
Kion. I believe that's all that needs to be said.

Torrey Pines
Retains: Thomas Freedman, Vasu Vikram
Torrey Pines loses seniors Kevin Jiang and Emily Sun, but they retain junior Vasu Vikram and freshmen top scorer Thomas Freedman, as well as incoming freshmen from the Carmel Valley MS team.

La Jolla
Retains: James Malouf, Vincent Doehr
La Jolla loses specialists Erica Liu and Charlie Mann, but retains hopefully competent sophomore James Malouf and junior Vincent Doehr. Along with Torrey Pines, they have an active middle school program and should be receiving some already experienced players. I expect them to contend the SoCal title with Westview and Rancho Bernardo.

Del Norte
Retains: Gokul Swarmy, Albert Lee, Joe Sun, Flora Park
Del Norte's HSNCT A team is unblemished by graduations (EDIT: except for Kevin Ma) I expect them to only improve this year, although maybe not repeat their t-34 HSNCT finish.

Canyon Crest Academy
Retains: Varkey Alumootil, Nathan Mar
While losing half of their 25th(?) place PACE team, CCA retains 3/4 of their scoring in Nathan Mar and Varkey Alumootil, and should be a regional contender next year, if a bit of a long shot.

Teams I don't know enough about to comment on extensively but might be good next year:

• Olympian - Olympian have only played two(?) NAQT tournaments before HSNCT this year, but nevertheless went 5-5. If they focus more on pyramidal quizbowl, they could easily become a very good team.
• Irvine - Had a decent team this year, and seem to have a fairly active novice program
• Los Alamitos - Another team marred by poor attendance, sophmore Arianne Crosby is already one of the best players in SoCal, and will only improve.
• Taft Charter - Have yet to develop into regional challengers, but have only improved since their debut in 2014.
• Grauer - ^

Synopsis:
1st Tier (Teams most likely to be regional champs.)
Westview, La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo
2nd Tier (Teams that will likely be regional contenders, and might be able to sneak in a few tournament wins)
Arcadia, CCA, Torrey Pines, Del Norte
3rd Tier (Teams that should focus on improvident for the future.)
Olympian, Irvine, Los Alamitos, Taft, Grauer, Carmel Valley, NoHo (if they still exist)

[sk4008]

I'd like to make some edits to James' post.
Xiaoke did not attend HSNCT. Hamlin Liu did. He is also a freshman.
Xiaoke's last name is Ying. Matthew's last name is Forster.
Hope that clarifies things a bit.

User was reminded to enable a signature. - Mgmt.

[Stinkweed Imp]

I decided to try to find some stats that resemble next years teams. Of course, most of these are based on aPPB throughout the year, so they probably won't be terribly accurate, especially because you can never really predict who will improve the most over the summer, but they should provide a general idea of which teams are already in good shape for 2015-2016.

Arcadia
Jacob Glass (10), Matt Forster (10), Xiaoke Ying (9), Roger Lin (9) on SCT DII - 20/81/26, 16.35 aPPB
Jacob Glass (10), Xiaoke Ying (9), Hamlin Liu (9), Sean L. on IS-141A - 29/69/18, 16.62 aPPB

Westview
Rahul Keyal (10) and Shivank Nayak (10) on MUT - 8/79/20, 18.99 aPPB
Rahul Keyal (10), Shivank Nayak (10), Edward Qiao, Kevin Yu on IS-141A - 65/38/27, 19.83 aPPB
Rahul Keyal (10), Shivank Nayak (10), Chaitanya Kore (10), Kevin Yu on HSAPQ 53 - 81/57/21, 22.75 PPB

La Jolla
Vincent Doehr (11), Klarissa Hollander (11), James Malouf (10), Haoran Guo (10), Sabrina Duong (9) on GSAC - 114 /22, 21.25 aPPB
Clay Halbert (11), James Malouf (10), Jae Yoon Kim (10), Amaya Duncan (9) on IS-141A - 53/52/18, 20.92 aPPB
James Malouf (10), Sabrina Duong (9) on SCT DII - 39/100/8, 21.34 aPPB

Rancho Bernardo
Kion You (11), Bryan Ugaz (10), Omar El-Sabrout (10) on IS-138 - 69/54/24, 20.81 PPB


Los Alamitos
Arianne Crosby (10) on IS-146 - 8/47/4, 14.91 PPB

Carmel Valley Middle (which feeds into Torrey Pines/CCA)
John Finkelman (8), Wesley Zhang (8), Amrita Vetticaden, Jeanne Zheng on IS-146 - 14/55/6, 16.23 PPB

These were all of the stats I could find for players not graduating this year. If anyone else has any stats please also post them in this thread.

[sk4008]

Arcadia:
Joshua Jen (11), Donna Sayphraraj (10), Xiaoke Ying (9) on IS-144 - 19/46/10, 18.69 aPPB
Roger Lin (9), Hamlin Liu (9), Matt Forster (9), Jacob Glass (9) on IS-144 - 20/46/18, 17.58 aPPB
Xiaoke Ying (9), Matt Forster (9), Sean Lee (10), Roger Lin (9) on IS-146 - 21/73/10, 17.77 aPPB
Hamlin Liu (9), Jacob Glass (9) on IS-146 -12/41/19, 15.09 aPPB

[Corry]

Good stuff! I mostly agree with your analysis, James-- Rancho Bernardo and La Jolla definitely strike me as the top regional contenders next year, with perhaps Westview thrown into the mix as well depending on how quickly Rahul Keyal improves.

As a side note, both Matt Forster and Jacob Glass from Arcadia were 9th graders (freshmen) this year.

[sk4008]

Honestly, with the progress I've seen in Arcadia's harvest of freshmen over this year, Arcadia A and B will probably yet again be forces to contend with after a couple of months into the season. This will all depend on how well Joshua Jen can wrangle this raw talent and mold it into a semblance of the mighty hammer that won HSNCT this year. He will definitely have his hands full, but the results are potentially game-changing.
That being said, I see Rancho Bernardo, La Jolla, and Westview immediately taking the reigns as the holy trinity of SoCal. The former is literally unchanged and the latter two retain the bulk of their scoring ability. And they can only improve from here.
Worthy of note is the fact that Kion will be the only returning player with both PACE and NASAT experience. If that doesn't strike fear into the hearts of the unprepared, then I don't know what will.

I can't say much as to the other teams in the region, so we'll have to wait and see what surprises the coming season will bring.

[acrosby1861]

Good stuff! I mostly agree with your analysis, James-- Rancho Bernardo and La Jolla definitely strike me as the top regional contenders next year, with perhaps Westview thrown into the mix as well depending on how quickly Rahul Keyal improves.

As a side note, both Matt Forster and Jacob Glass from Arcadia were 9th graders (freshmen) this year.

I agree with James' post too.

[*] Los Alamitos - Another team marred by poor attendance,

This is a really good point. I was focusing more on NHBB competitions this year, that's why I couldn't really show up to many quiz bowl tournaments this year. Also, I think some of my teammates wanted to come to tournaments but we wound up not signing up (either from lack of interest or other commitments and conflicts). This is to the best of my knowledge, by the way.

But otherwise, really good job with the stats, James.

[Eddie]

This is a really good point. I was focusing more on NHBB competitions this year, that's why I couldn't really show up to many quiz bowl tournaments this year. Also, I think some of my teammates wanted to come to tournaments but we wound up not signing up (either from lack of interest or other commitments and conflicts). This is to the best of my knowledge, by the way.

But otherwise, really good job with the stats, James.

I think Los Alamitos has the foundation to become a really strong team - I was really impressed with your win on the NHBB C-set last year! You're getting nearly 100 PPG and right around 15 PPB on your own, so I think Los Alamitos just needs some depth and maybe subject specialists to get really good. It would be delightful to see Los Alamitos around more often next year.

[acrosby1861]

This is a really good point. I was focusing more on NHBB competitions this year, that's why I couldn't really show up to many quiz bowl tournaments this year. Also, I think some of my teammates wanted to come to tournaments but we wound up not signing up (either from lack of interest or other commitments and conflicts). This is to the best of my knowledge, by the way.

But otherwise, really good job with the stats, James.

I think Los Alamitos has the foundation to become a really strong team - I was really impressed with your win on the NHBB C-set last year! You're getting nearly 100 PPG and right around 15 PPB on your own, so I think Los Alamitos just needs some depth and maybe subject specialists to get really good. It would be delightful to see Los Alamitos around more often next year.

I found out about 2 hours ago that some of my teammates (they'll most likely cover science like they did last year) will be returning for another year of quiz bowl. And we also got a new leader for Los Al's quiz bowl team, and he wants to go to more tournaments. So this is a good sign.

[Eddie]

This is a really good point. I was focusing more on NHBB competitions this year, that's why I couldn't really show up to many quiz bowl tournaments this year. Also, I think some of my teammates wanted to come to tournaments but we wound up not signing up (either from lack of interest or other commitments and conflicts). This is to the best of my knowledge, by the way.

But otherwise, really good job with the stats, James.

I think Los Alamitos has the foundation to become a really strong team - I was really impressed with your win on the NHBB C-set last year! You're getting nearly 100 PPG and right around 15 PPB on your own, so I think Los Alamitos just needs some depth and maybe subject specialists to get really good. It would be delightful to see Los Alamitos around more often next year.

I found out about 2 hours ago that some of my teammates (they'll most likely cover science like they did last year) will be returning for another year of quiz bowl. And we also got a new leader for Los Al's quiz bowl team, and he wants to go to more tournaments. So this is a good sign.

If y'all need funding, I bet you could partner up with some of the other OC schools and co-host a tournament. I think UC Irvine is also planning to run at least one tournament next year, too.

[acrosby1861]

If y'all need funding, I bet you could partner up with some of the other OC schools and co-host a tournament. I think UC Irvine is also planning to run at least one tournament next year, too.

From my understanding, funding doesn't seem to be that big of a problem for us (we just take the total registration fee and divide it up among the people who are going, so $150 divided among 8 to 10 people would be about $10 to $15 each). But I can ask about hosting possibilities, not sure what my teammates' reaction is going to be, but it's worth a shot at this point.

[orenji]

I'll be the first to admit that I'm super biased towards my alma mater, but I think CCA will be a regional contender next year along with RB and LJ.

As James said, they return both Varkey and Nathan from their PACE squad. [They placed 28th]
Presuming that Varkey plays more tournaments next year, I think that he and Nathan along with two members from their B and C teams will be very good next year. After all, CCA B did win the lower division of SoCal State at Westview this year.

Also I think that their B team will probably be competing with Arcadia as the best B team in SoCal since the majority of the CVMS team at MSNCT is coming to CCA from what I'm told, and hopefully they continue playing.

[Eddie]

Our first pre-season preview of the teams in Southern California. In a nutshell, Arcadia has some serious rebuilding to do, while La Jolla, Rancho Bernardo, and Westview look to ascend to the top.

[kevjiangba]

Would like to now add Torrey Pines in the mix for regional contenders.. ;)