New England Discussion '15-'16

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
Locked
User avatar
Maury Island incident
Wakka
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:30 pm

New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Maury Island incident »

In this thread, discuss teams and players in New England for the upcoming 2015-2016 quizbowl season. Please refrain from "lazily lobbing insults at each other." I'll post my analysis below as so to not clog the OP.
Colin Cantwell
Lexington '17
UVA '21
Halved Xenon Stinging
Wakka
Posts: 162
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:31 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Halved Xenon Stinging »

Colin, I dont think this thread is necessary because there arent enough teams that we can significantly discuss in New England. We can just discuss New England teams in the thread Zack started.
Last edited by Halved Xenon Stinging on Mon Jun 08, 2015 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Devin Shang
Lexington High School Co-Captain '16
Pomona '20
2016 National History Bee Runner-Up, 2016 National History Bowl Runner-Up
NAQT Writer
NHBB Writer
User avatar
Maury Island incident
Wakka
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Maury Island incident »

I disagree. New England and NY/NJ are two separate circuits. It doesn't matter how many teams meet your standards of being "worth discussing" in New England, because the fact is New England teams rarely play NY/NJ teams. Though our circuit is not as deep as the NY/NJ circuit, there are still teams that play quizbowl here. These are the teams that we play at most tournaments each year. Since we are separate circuits, we should have separate threads.
Colin Cantwell
Lexington '17
UVA '21
High Dependency Unit
Yuna
Posts: 864
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:45 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by High Dependency Unit »

Halved Xenon Stinging wrote:Colin, I dont think this thread is necessary because there arent enough teams worth discussing in New England. We can just discuss New England teams in the thread Zack started.
Well, 11 teams from New England (including 3 from VT) attended HSNCT, and 6 of them made playoffs. Andover also attended PACE. Considering there are other solid teams who didn't attend HSNCT or NSC like Glastonbury, Greens Farms (top 50 at NHBB nats), and Hingham, there's certainly enough to discuss.
Michael Borecki
Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
Bowdoin College (club president) '21
User avatar
Maury Island incident
Wakka
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Maury Island incident »

My aforementioned analysis:
I'm going to discuss teams by state this year. Sorry, Vermont, I will apologize for not knowing anything about your teams, and thus not discussing them. The teams are not in any particular order beyond "Team A popped into my head before Team B, therefore I'm going to discuss Team A first."

MASSACHUSETTS:
Lexington A: 8-2, t-53 at HSNCT, loses Arjun Sarathy
We return the entirety of the A team we brought to HSNCT, but lose Arjun Sarathy, who played on our A team for the majority of the year. Our weaknesses remain mostly the same (we're still bad at science, though Devin Shang is studying it). Hopefully, we'll continue to improve, cut down on our negs, and do a bit better at nationals next year. I will probably say more about us in a separate post, but not much changes with us this year, at least first semester.

AMSA: 7-3, t-21 at HSNCT, loses nobody
AMSA also returns the entirety of their A team from HSNCT this year. Ani should be the best science player in the state again. AMSA is a more balanced team scoring-wise than us, as we rely a lot more on Devin and I for the bulk of the scoring, which makes AMSA more consistent. We did enjoy great success against AMSA this year, which will hopefully continue into next year, but all of our rounds were close, and we should both be nationally elite teams next year.

Hingham: attended only NHBB, loses Sam and Ryan
Hingham was the third-best team in the state most of this year, pulling upsets against Bethlehem and AMSA. They do lose half their A team, including their leading scorer Sam, and will probably promote John and Zach from their relatively strong B team, which was second only to Lexington B this year. Their returning A team members have fairly strong power rates, and Hingham scales up fairly well.

Acton-Boxborough: 4-6 at HSNCT, loses Josh
For the second straight year, Acton-Boxborough loses a generalist who accounted for the majority of their points, HSNCT All-Star Josh Xiong. They were better this year than their 4-6 record at HSNCT indicates. However, this year, I am more optimistic about their returning players. Spencer Thrope is dedicated to improving and was a strong lower-level generalist this year before Josh joined the team in November, leading A-B to a consistent fourth in state behind Lexington, AMSA, and Hingham. Hingham, Acton-Boxborough, Lexington B, and Phillips Andover, should be competing fiercely for the 3-6 spots in the state. However, I think A-B has the greatest chance of emerging from that pack of teams based on summer studying.

Lexington B: 4-6 at HSNCT, loses Harvey Wang
Lexington B also went 4-6 at HSNCT, but loses leading scorer Harvey Wang. First semester, B team will consist of Owen Davidson, Gavin Mak, James Liu, and Kyle Doney. Gavin has developed into probably the best science player of our squad, getting 3 science tossups off A team at NAQT States, and he could end up on A team by the end of the year. Lexington B would improve greatly if Duncan McCallum or Reggie Luo join it later in the year, as both are decent low-level generalists. James Liu could be the leading scorer on Lexington B at the beginning of the year, especially on A sets, due to deeper knowledge of the canon as Lexington B's most experienced player. James led Lexington B (with Harvey) in prelim scoring at NAQT states, though his generalism does not scale up well and he does not power a lot outside of philosophy and some science.

Phillips Andover: 89th at PACE NSC, loses nobody from A team as far as I know
Andover's team came into being early this year, and they quickly rose to being one of the better teams in the region, taking 6th at NAQT States behind the teams I've already mentioned. To the best of my knowledge, all of them are freshmen or sophomores, so they will likely not peak as a team until next year. Andover entered quizbowl with a fair bit of real knowledge, and with studying, they could be the region's top team in two years.

Northampton: 4-6 at HSNCT, loses Saadya
I believe Northampton returns everybody from the team they brought to HSNCT. However, they lose leading scorer Saadya Chevan, one of the best music players in the country. They are at a bit of a disadvantage being one of the only Western MA teams in quizbowl, so they do not get the benefit of playing Eastern MA tournaments as much.

Abby Kelley Foster: no nationals, loses Abena, Paul, and Carrie
Abby Kelley Foster has had a consistent quizbowl program for several years now. However, they lose their three top and most consistent players, and figure to have a drop off this year.

Brookline: no nationals, loses Kenny and Katherine
I forgot that Brookline existed last year when doing my analysis, a mistake I promise I won't make again. They lose their two leading scorers from NAQT States, but do have a large program with which to rebuild. I'd expect them to be around the same level next year.

Boston Latin: no nationals, loses nobody
Like Andover, Boston Latin joined the quizbowl fray early this year and is very young. However, they are even younger than Andover, as the majority of their team is in middle school. Though BLS struggled this past year, they are worth mentioning as a top New England team of the future.

CONNECTICUT:
Darien: 6-4 at HSNCT, T-77, loses nobody
What surprised me about Darien's playoff finish at HSNCT was not that Michael Borecki is good at quizbowl, but rather the development of his teammates, especially Julia. If his teammates study, they could come close to Lexington and AMSA, though I don't know if they will be able to catch up this year. When John Phipps arrives from Middlesex in two years, though, they could be very, very good.

EO Smith: 6-4 at HSNCT, T-77, loses Harrison and Ron
EO Smith has a tradition of producing solid quizbowl teams each year. This year, they lose half their A team, including leading scorer Harrison Hall. However, they have a large program, bringing a C team to most tournaments, so they have plenty of replacements ready. EO Smith is consistently at a top-bracket level at local tournaments, and I expect them to stay that way this year.

Glastonbury: no nationals, loses Abraar, Kevin, and Colin
Glastonbury came out of nowhere to be the third best team in Connecticut in the second half of this year, cracking the Morlan rankings with a 20+ PPB at their first-ever tournament. Unfortunately, this success is not going to last, as they lose most of their team/program. Hopefully they play at the collegiate level since they have quite a lot of real knowledge, especially in the sciences.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Bishop Guertin: 6-4 at HSNCT, t-77, loses nobody
Another team doing well in their first year of pyramidal quizbowl, Bishop Guertin improved steadily throughout the year to the point of a playoff finish at HSNCT. HSNCT All-Star Tim Morrison returns as by far the leading scorer on Bishop Guertin, which will likely be the closest thing New England has to a one-man team. Bishop Guertin and Darien are likely to be the two best New England teams not named Lexington and AMSA, but probably won't play each other much this upcoming year due to lack of geographic proximity.

Phillips Exeter: only attended NHBB, loses Andrew Xu
Exeter only attended one non-NHBB tournament this year, MIT Fall, at which they upset AMSA and finished in third place. If NHBB counts, they were also the only New England team to beat both us and AMSA this year. However, they lose leading scorer Andrew Xu, meaning their entire program will consist of two people this year, which should cut down on them going to tournaments. Notably, Tanmay Khale did not attend Phillips Exeter this year.
Colin Cantwell
Lexington '17
UVA '21
Halved Xenon Stinging
Wakka
Posts: 162
Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:31 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Halved Xenon Stinging »

Generating Steam Heat wrote:. Since we are separate circuits, we should have separate threads.
According to your logic, there should be a separate thread for Vermont, as they have their own circuit up there. Besides, the two "subcircuits" (New England and greater NY/NJ) overlap significantly: HFT, various Yale tournaments, various Columbia tournaments, and New York teams/Charter have often come up to MIT things as well. Last year's discussion really did turn into an argument between Lexington and AMSA and imo it would really be beneficial to combine our circuit discussion with the NJ/NY thread.

EDIT: Additionally, housewrites typically look for mirrors in the Northeast, not both in New England and Greater NJ.
Last edited by Halved Xenon Stinging on Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Devin Shang
Lexington High School Co-Captain '16
Pomona '20
2016 National History Bee Runner-Up, 2016 National History Bowl Runner-Up
NAQT Writer
NHBB Writer
High Dependency Unit
Yuna
Posts: 864
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:45 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by High Dependency Unit »

What grade is Tim Morrison in?

Julia and Molly are both solid players, though Molly and I have a large overlap in being generalists who are strongest in history and geography. Our goal as a team is to specialize more, something we really have the freedom to do, with Julia taking lit, me taking geography, some history, and Molly taking the rest of history and some current events. Evan Tong is studying 2/2 of science and will join the A team. Interestingly, the plan is to not have Molly replaced by Phipps in 2016-17, but by a second science-oriented person, as I am confident that if we put in the studying we say we are going to we are capable of covering humanities very well. We will almost certainly be in the top 50 next year, but our goals are set much higher. Still, we need to study first, and that goes for every team discussed here.

Some longer Connecticut rankings for next year:

1. Darien (see above). Way too early prediction: t-34 or t-21 at HSNCT
2. E.O. Smith. I actually think they can be better next year than they were this year. Chris Choi was almost as good as Harrison, and Mira from their B team had the third most powers at CT States (behind me and Phipps), so they should be able to improve slightly. Prediction: t-77 again
3. Greens Farms Academy. They return their A team from CT States, which qualified for nationals and averaged 18.75 ppb. Their #2 scorer at states was a freshman, and I believe their #1 from that tournament was a sophomore. They can be very good. Prediction: Morlan-ranked
4. Middlesex. They bring back Phipps and Maya, among others, and will be a solid team at HS events.
5. Greens Farms B. They finished t-5 with Middlesex at the state tournament. I don't know their grades, but I assume most will return.
6. Darien B. Thomas Brown and Folke Bruno will be a help, and now that we have 20+ kids there should be enough decent kids to get them in range of nationals qualification, so these guys could move into the #4 slot.
7. Glastonbury. Hopefully their program sticks around, but they likely will not make the top bracket at states.
Michael Borecki
Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
Bowdoin College (club president) '21
User avatar
Maury Island incident
Wakka
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Maury Island incident »

Halved Xenon Stinging wrote:
Generating Steam Heat wrote:. Since we are separate circuits, we should have separate threads.
According to your logic, there should be a separate thread for Vermont, as they have their own circuit up there. Besides, the two "subcircuits" (New England and greater NY/NJ) overlap significantly: HFT, various Yale tournaments, various Columbia tournaments, and New York teams/Charter have often come up to MIT things as well. Last year's discussion really did turn into an argument between Lexington and AMSA and imo it would really be beneficial to combine our circuit discussion with the NJ/NY thread.

EDIT: Additionally, housewrites typically look for mirrors in the Northeast, not both in New England and Greater NJ.
Vermont can have its own thread, because they are their own circuit. This is not about Vermont, which I notably did not discuss in my analysis. No Massachusetts team (I'm discounting Darien for this because they are significantly closer to New York City than to Boston) has ever played a tournament outside the geographic region of New England, though we plan to this year, meaning Columbia tournaments have never had any overlap. Last year, I believe, was the start of a larger trend toward the greater fragmentation of the Northeast into two circuits. Only Kellenberg and Regis came to MIT Fall last year, since most competitive NY/NJ teams are not going to travel several hours to play an A set. Yale FaCT featured even fewer NY/NJ teams, again likely due to its choice of question set. (BTW it would be nice if this year's FaCt was a regular-difficulty set so we do have more diverse competition.) We had as many teams at our NAQT Massachusetts state championship as did New Jersey. In the past, the New England circuit was so small it needed attendance from NY/NJ teams. Now, it does not. Though our New England circuit is still nascent and nowhere near the size and depth of NY/NJ, we still have a good enough number of teams for discussion. How good those teams are doesn't matter; those are the teams we play at the vast majority of tournaments we play. Most New England teams never play most NY/NJ teams, aside from a chance encounter with one at BHSAT prelims or something of that ilk. Making our circuit a backwater extension of the NY/NJ circuit isn't going to help it develop. We can talk about Lexington and AMSA in the NY/NJ thread, but there should be another thread for this circuit, hence why I made it.

On the matter of housewrites, I don't think editors of housewrites go about actively prohibiting mirrors in both regions. It's not like Connor Wood wouldn't let us mirror GSAC when we expressed interest in doing so this year because there was already a mirror at St. Joe's (which we plan to attend next year, FWIW.) We had a LIST mirror last season at Williams. It is more a problem of New England tournament hosts choosing NAQT over housewrites. For instance, 4 IS sets and 4 A sets were used in the geographic area of New England this year, while only two housewrites occurred (the main sites of HFT and BHSAT). No New England host mirrored the housewrite of another team. The lack of housewrites in New England is an entirely different entity unrelated to whether we are our own circuit or not.

P.S. I think Michael Borecki would beg to differ that last year's New England thread turned into a Lexington/AMSA argument.
Colin Cantwell
Lexington '17
UVA '21
User avatar
KnicksRule
Wakka
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Jun 11, 2013 11:29 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by KnicksRule »

After the first two tournaments of the year, not much is actually clear other than Lexington's incredible depth and the individual abilities of Colin, Devin, Borecki, and Tim Morrison
Abhinav Kurada
AMSA Charter School '12-'16
Captain '13-'16
2x winner of United States Geography Olympiad (2013, 2014); USGO International Team Member (2015)
SSNCT Runner-Up (2014); T-21 HSNCT (2015)
joyous
Lulu
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Nov 17, 2015 9:44 am

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by joyous »

After the (partial) hiatus of a couple of months of quizbowl during the winter, the Four Idiots are looking to get into the swing of things with New England teams come February!

also, shameless plug for the incredible improvement of Will Kim from our team
sam he
phillips academy '17
uc berkeley '21
High Dependency Unit
Yuna
Posts: 864
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:45 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by High Dependency Unit »

Considering nationals season starts with SSNCT this weekend, I think it's time to post a nationals preview.

Lexington (HSNCT-2, NSC)
No team from the region has ever been as good as Lexington is this year. The team is led by Colin, with everyone else strong players in supporting roles. While there's no doubt the team is extremely capable, one has to ask how they will fare against top teams on non-history. Lexington (moreso Devin) also has the ability to neg themselves out of games, which could come back to bite them in the elimination stage at nationals. Lexington B has potential depending on the lineup. They did well at MIT Winter.
Prediction: HSNCT: 8-2, between t-8 and t-21 depending on if/when they neg 6 times, 5-5 (B)
NSC: 9-16 tier

AMSA (SSNCT, HSNCT-2)
This team is strong and balanced, and is capable of doing alot of damage. The only hole they really seem to have is literature. NAQT questions will also fit their strengths very nicely. This team will win SSNCT easily, and they should still be alive near the HSNCT lunch break.
Prediction: SSNCT: 1st
HSNCT: t-13

Bishop Guertin (HSNCT)
Tim is a very strong player, but the past success of 1-man teams is mixed. I'm sure he'll have a teammate or two, but they'll need to step up and provide some real support for this team to really succeed.
Prediction: t-34

Acton-Boxborough (HSNCT)
This team is really led by Spencer, who hasn't put up great power numbers. One has to wonder whether his teammates will provide enough support, and whether Spencer will be able to get through tough competition, to get this team to the playoffs, but they certainly have the capability to do so.
Prediction: 5-5

Philips Academy (HSNCT)
Who's actually on this team? They had a solid performance at MIT Winter, at least.
Prediction: 5-5

Darien (HSNCT-2)
We haven't fielded a full lineup since October, so I don't have a great benchmark. Andrew Benz and Brendan Berrigan will really need to contribute on math and science because I can't do everything, though I cover history, geography, and a bunch of other areas. Julia is getting better and better at literature and music. If they contribute and I can be consistent, we can go to at least t-21, if not further.
Prediction: t-34

Conard (HSNCT)
They seem to just be going for fun. This is their first year, and they haven't been able to beat out-of-state teams.
Prediction: 3-7

"Four Idiots" (NSC)
These guys seem pretty good, but I have no idea what the middle of the NSC field looks like.
Prediction: Somewhere in the middle 50%
Michael Borecki
Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
Bowdoin College (club president) '21
User avatar
Maury Island incident
Wakka
Posts: 185
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by Maury Island incident »

THERE ARE NO BRAKES ON THIS HYPE TRAIN

Lexington A (Colin Cantwell, Devin Shang, Reggie Luo, Duncan McCallum):
How good does Devin Shang have to get before people stop calling him a supporting player? As usual, we will not get very much science and will neg a lot. We'll do something along the lines of beating DCC but getting blown out by East Brunswick in back-to-back rounds and flame out of playoffs earlier than we should be again. Don't even ask me what's going on with NSC at this point.
Prediction: T-13

Lexington B (Will Marshall, Nick Rommel, Kyle Doney, Brendan Cantwell):
This is our B team from MIT Winter (that was the only time they've played together this year.) Will Marshall is our best science player across any of our teams, and Nick may hold that title for geography, so the NAQT distribution should help this team. Kyle is a good myth player, and my brother can hold a buzzer in his hand and maybe buzz in with a correct answer once in a while.
Prediction: 6-4, lose in first round of playoffs

AMSA:
Even though Massachusetts is only a C state, they should win SSNCT pretty easily. I predict that Tim does not wear a baseball cap to HSNCT this year, so they do not lose to Naperville North again.
Prediction: T-13

Bishop Guertin:
Tim Morrison is a very solid generalist across the board. I think their team for HSNCT is two-man. Zach, his teammate, is mostly an arts player, so this will look a lot more like a 1-man team at HSNCT. They should improve on their 6-5 finish from last year.
Prediction: T-34

Darien:
I haven't seen Darien play much this year, but I've been impressed with the quality of play of Borecki's teammates.
Prediction: T-34

Acton-Boxborough:
Last year's Acton-Boxborough team, which I thought could make playoffs, got screwed by the card system and missed playoffs. Their two highlights this season have been a victory over a Cantwell-less Lexington A at Connecticut Invitational and a victory over Spuyten Duyvil at LIMIT. They can certainly pull off upsets, and HSNCT is pretty variable in that regard.
Prediction: 5-5

Phillips Academy:
After even I am unable to figure out who's playing on their team at HSNCT, I get suspicious. My suspicions are confirmed when they show up to the tournament having successfully cloned the entirety of the Lexington A team. Unfortunately, they made the clones a little too accurately, and they neg 8 times in the first playoff round.
Prediction: 6-4, lose in first round of playoffs

Conard:
This team exists. I think we played them once.
Prediction: 3-7

Four Idiots:
This team is very good at lit and arts, so they should do a lot better at NSC than at HSNCT.
Prediction: Somewhere in the middle of the field at NSC
Colin Cantwell
Lexington '17
UVA '21
High Dependency Unit
Yuna
Posts: 864
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:45 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by High Dependency Unit »

(Because I am an idiot who completely forgets about my own B team) Darien B: We are bringing 3 freshmen in Evan Tong, Griffin Samroengraja, and Thomas Brown, in addition to juniors Johnathan Stimpson and Komal Dhull. Johnathan is a solid geography/current events player who can put up 30-40 ppg (when not playing with me) even at nats, Thomas is a decent but steadily improving lit player, Evan is good but needs to study, Griffin just goes off and scores a ton of points once in a while, and Komal has played a total of like 2 tournament games in the last two years. The optimist in me says they're a balanced team that will have an outside shot at the playoffs, but they haven't put up the numbers yet.
Prediction: 4-6
Michael Borecki
Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
Bowdoin College (club president) '21
kcommo
Wakka
Posts: 239
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2003 11:33 pm
Location: Burlington, VT

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by kcommo »

I know that the powers that be on this thread have decided that Vermont teams don't exist in a New England sense, but I wanted to give a quick shout out to Middlebury after its excellent finish at SSNCT this weekend. I'm just amazed at how much that team turned up the level of its game in the last month or so.

Middlebury was a second-tier team for most of the local season, no bad loses but not really threatening the top teams. Then they finished strong to come in third at the Vermont NAQT Championship and came out of nowhere with five straight wins to finish second in our Scholars' Bowl finals, really pushing Burlington in the championship match. That momentum clearly continued in Chicago and I'm really excited for them because they didn't even decide to go to nationals until early April.

Middlebury graduates its top scorer, Elias Wyncoop, but has its four other top players return so it should be as good or better next season. I expect either Middlebury or CVU will be Vermont's top team in 2016-17.

And while I'm at it, congrats to AMSA and Lexington on the really impressive performances at SSNCT and NHBB. It's awesome to see New England teams becoming a real factor in the national scene.
Kevin Commo
Coach, Burlington (Vt.) HS
Tournament Director, Vermont-NEA Scholars' Bowl
Director of Staffing and Statistics, International Academic Competitions
smartcantwell
Kimahri
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun May 08, 2016 3:31 pm

Re: New England Discussion '15-'16

Post by smartcantwell »

Gonzague Truc wrote:and my brother can hold a buzzer in his hand and maybe buzz in with a correct answer once in a while.
Excuse me Colin? Have you forgotten my trash lit prowess? In all seriousness, that's not really a fair description as I can occasionally beat Kyle to myth, and I'm a decent generalist.

User was reminded to enable a signature -- staff
Brendan Cantwell
Lexington High School
Locked