Northeast Discussion '24/25

[curiousmind34]

Since the most recent Groger Ranks just came out (link), I thought it would a good time to run the Northeast Mid-season poll.

Please fill out the form with your top 10 teams in the Northeast (including New England, NJ, NY, PA, and DE) by 11:59 PM on January 29 and include justifications if possible. Credit to Sam Macchi for creating the form because I'm not much of a forms/spreadsheets person.
link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... usp=dialog

There are a lot of great teams in the region this year! For your reference, here are the top 15 teams in the region according to the most recent Groger Ranks.

1 Lexington A (MA) 120.64 FARSI
6 Livingston A (NJ) 103.26 IS-231
7 Hunter A (NY) 100.16 CARD
9 Belmont A (MA) 99.28 IQBT-5
28 Darien A (CT) 87.51 SHOW-M3
32 Downingtown STEM A (PA) 85.83 FARSI
33 High Tech A (NJ) 85.76 CARD
35 Eastchester A (NY) 85.61 SITH II
42 Henderson A (PA) 84.17 IS-233
45 Stuyvesant A (NY) 83.33 FARSI
46 HSMSE at CCNY A (NY) 83.13 IS-233
52 Edison Academy A (NJ) 82.03 IS-231
56 East Brunswick A (NJ) 81.71 FARSI
57 Germantown Friends A (PA) 81.68 IS-233
61 Westwood A (MA) 80.78 FARSI

I encourage you all to analyze and/or shill teams that you think should be on people's ballots!

[Somewhere in the Stratosphere]

Not a Northeasterner, but a team of sophomores being #1 Groger ranked is absolutely absurd

[3C273]

GV getting absolutely snubbed smh
I can attest that Travis' lit has stayed excellent (which I don't think anyone's doubted), and his VFA & Thought has gotten really good. While Brighton's graduation has hurt them a lot, I know the rest of the team is working hard on improving rn. I can't say for sure how fast they're going to improve over these next few months, but they absolutely deserve a place in this top 10 (and will 100% be there for nats).

[curiousmind34]

Since its midterm season in Darien I'll post a brief analysis for each team I think should be on your ballot so I can procrastinate:

Belmont:
Andrew Gao and Gregory Zeldovich are really good, but I think people might underestimate how good Belmont is even without them. Their stats at CORGV without either of them were really solid, I think this team could go far.

Darien:
We have a lot of good players, I think Darien B will be quite good this year, not sure what our A team will be yet 100% but I’m guessing we are going to make it through at least a few rounds of playoffs at HSNCT.

Downingtown STEM:
Ryan Smith has good specialization in several areas and has solid support, should be on your list.

Eastchester:
Max Lin put up like 8 P/G on SITH II. Y’all should be scared.

Great Valley:
Somehow not on this Groger List because of PPB but Travis Johnson has specialization and can scale well. Overall this team is concentrated in a few categories so they have the potential to upset top teams and lose to lower teams depending on matchups, high variance.

Hunter
Hunter is still Hunter. Evan Schleck has been playing very well recently but I wasn’t at ACE this year so idk what’s going on with them specifically right now, should be on your ballot for sure though!

High Tech:
Haven’t seen them since PHSAT in September but if I remember correctly they have really good FA (or maybe that was someone on their B team?) Either way, I know Ryan Leverock is a really solid player and the team has good balance.

Livingston:
They got 3rd at HSNCT and have kept most of their team. Need I say more? These guys will make it far.

Lexington:
Have not played them since they became incredibly OP but like 27 PPB on FARSI is insaneeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Having three specialists putting up a ton of powers is a legit nats-winning formula.

Stuyvesant:
This team was really solid at FARSI @ Columbia. I think they are good at lit and hist but potentially weaker in sci.

[kdnf]

The Northeast is super exciting as a region this year, though I'm not super well informed of teams from the entire region, I want to shill some teams that I think have been exciting so far this season.

MASSACHUSETTS

Seeing the Massachusetts circuit grow recently has been super exciting, there are a few really good teams, some that I think deserve a spot in any top 10, and others that are on their way there.

Westwood
Westwood is a team that deserves a spot on every single poll submitted. Their Groger rank is a little bit deceptive, as with just their best performance included they would be top 30, in that tournament (on FARSI) they had around 8 powers/game and 22 PPB. Westwood is led by Jasper Xu and a strong cast of supporting teammates, they don't have any gaping holes and are definitely a team to be aware of (as well as being great and fun people all around).

Belmont
I don't need to say much about Belmont. Everybody knows the caliber of this team. Greg Zeldovich is not only one of the best players in the Northeast, but one of the best players in HSQB right now, he has the ability to power RM or specific Geohist on pretty much any difficulty, he is an absolute lock on the categories he does (he's also a very entertaining individual). Andrew Gao is an incredible generalist, he does a lot of categories and does all of them well, in addition to being a great player, he's also a great guy and tournament director as well (shout out to Belmont for bolstering the Massachusetts circuit). Daniel Sheffield and Jeffrey Wu are great players to go alongside this team and round them out well.

Lexington
I have some great teammates that I think deserve some spotlight

Alvan Hossain: Alvan is a great player, when he gets going he's pretty much unstoppable. I've seen his buzzer tendencies really mature first hand over the course of my playing career with him and I think right now he's not only one of the best Geohist players in QB, but a threatening RM player as well.

Aadi Pudasaini: I have the (perhaps biased) belief that Aadi Pudasaini is the most underrated player in high school quizbowl right now. He's probably tied for the best science player in the Northeast right now (with Sky Hong) . Aadi's specialization is incredible, his scaling has improved a lot and when going into tough matchups with top teams that might not be that great at science, it makes me feel comfort that we always have a free 3 or 4 tossups to fall back on.

Atticus Oliver: Alvan, Aadi and I take up about 90% of the distribution. That remaining 10% is a weird space, it isn't a single category that we can patch through studying, but a bunch of scattered holes that exist in our knowledge of our respective categories, or other academic content. Atticus is like a perfect puzzle piece next to us, he fills these holes perfectly. Lexington is a team that favors MACF, our strongest categories are more represented in the PACE distribution than the HSNCT distribution. Atticus fits perfectly into this core in that way as well, he's a strong NAQT player, having the knowledge of old-time TV shows, country singers, and the most random stuff that shows up a LOT more in NAQT than in MACF. This leads to powers on tossups we wouldn't even have converted. Overall he's an incredible player to match the specialized core we've built

Melody Zou: Melody's a great club president who ends up handling a lot of the logistics of our club, which I think deserves a shoutout. An example of this is doing the bulk of the planning for the tournament LIGHT on 3/1 at Lexington High School on IS-237
(https://www.naqt.com/registration/field ... t_id=16780) which anybody in the area should definitely pull up to!


Here are some other Massachusetts teams in no particular order, that though might not be at this top 10 level, are great competitors in Massachusetts tournaments, and I think deserve shoutouts.

Charlemont Academy: Led by Ivan Harder, (who usually finishes as one of the top scorers of every tournament he plays at) has seemingly popped out of nowhere. The team is solid, though I don't know their status about coming to HSNCT, I think with sufficient studying they could possibly make playoffs.

Mansfield: I've loved playing against this team for years, they consistently do good at Massachusetts tournaments but are also great and fun guys all around. Again, not sure of their HSNCT status, but another possible playoff caliber team.

Belmont B: I don't really know the actual roster for this team, but the non-a team Belmont players have great knowledge and are mostly class of 2027 and below I believe. Though Lexington always manages to put up our best performances against Belmont B, I think with the strength and commitment of this program, they could be a problem in the long run.

OTHER NE

I'm not the most well informed about local ongoings in a lot of other NE states but there are a few teams I specifically want to shout out, or are just really damn good.

Livingston: Robert Wang. Need I say more. He's the best history player in the nation and one of the best players overall. The team overall is also strong, especially on NAQT. This team is one of my favorites to win it all at HSNCT.

Hunter: On the topic of great players, Evan Schleck is up there with Bobby for the title of best player in the Northeast right now. Hunter always finds a way to be relevant in nats discussions and I don't think that changes this year. Being completely transparent I don't know a ton about this team, but I can tell they will do great.

Great Valley As said before in replies to this post, GV not being on the top 10 isn't reflective of their positions in your poll. Travis Johnson is a top 3 lit player in the country right now and this team scales with the best in the NE. Against teams that are reliant on scooping up lit to win games, Travis can completely derail this. They are a high variance team, if they can get into a groove before nationals (specifically PACE), they might be able to make some noise.

[knuke]

I think the northeast is really interesting this year, and have been meaning to make this post, so I guess its finally time to talk about some exciting teams from the region.

PENNSYLVANIA

I first want to bring some attention to some PA teams that are very competitive right now as I feel like a lot of the region may not know about them, and they tend to travel less. I think the circuit has grown a lot within the past few years so I'm glad that there are this many competitive teams.

Henderson
I could not talk about Pennsylvania without talking about Henderson, the team that has not lost a game to any other PA teams. They're a very consistent and solid team with good chemistry, and had very strong performances on 233 and 231 where they beat other strong teams ranked above them on Groger like Darien and STEM. Their power numbers aren't at that elite level yet but with the core of Sidharth Sumesh and Kyle Meade they're improving rapidly. They also have some sneaky rmpss and ce knowledge. Ultimately this team's main strength is their consistency, you can always bet on a consistent number of gets and a strong PPB from them, and I think they will fare very well at HSNCT.

Downingtown Stem
Stem is another team that deserves some recognition, and are rightfully getting some. They had very good performances at Farsi and 233 with strong performances against other top teams. I believe that their main strength is in their scaling this year, with Ryan Smith and Ameya Bhalerano having very deep knowledge in lit/fa and sci respectively. Right now they have a slight consistency issue due to a high neg rate but as they ramp up for nationals I think it will be fixed. This is another team that is set to do very well at nationals.

Cedar Crest
Cedar Crest is another top PA team that has not travelled out of the state for a tournament yet, but do not sleep on them. They're lead by recent NAQT player of the week Viseth Meng who I believe is one of the strongest Lit and FA players in the region. They have some nice history coverage from their second and third players and are very capable of upsetting teams that are reliant on getting these subjects. I'm really excited to see how they do at nationals.

Germantown Friends
This team has had some rostering issues recently but I'm surprised they are not being looked at more for HSNCT AND SSNCT. For their performance on IS-233 that yielded them an impressive t60 spot on Groger Ranks they're top scorer, William Kessler, a strong hist/sci generalist was not present. They have lots of support in Sci and Literature/fa with strong specalists, Julian Zhao and Maisie Quinn respectively. Lastly they're currently lead by Milo Scanlon who may be one of the best NAQT players I have seen in a while. Last year they were 11th at SSNCT and have only gotten better. They deserve to be in the discussion a lot more then they currently are.

-Travis Johnson

User was reminded to enable a complete signature. --Mgmt.

[DragonSM]

Poll results are in!

1. Lexington A: 89 points, average ranking of 1.27, ranked in 11/11 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 3 (dropped)
2. Livingston A: 82 points, average ranking of 1.82, ranked in 11/11 ballots, highest vote: 1 (dropped), lowest vote: 2 (dropped)
3. Hunter A: 69 points, average ranking of 3.27, ranked in 11/11 ballots, highest vote: 2 (dropped), lowest vote: 4 (dropped)
4. Belmont A: 66 points, average ranking of 3.73, ranked in 11/11 ballots, highest vote: 3 (dropped), lowest vote: 5 (dropped)
5. Darien A: 45 points, average ranking of 5.8, ranked in 10/11 ballots, highest vote: 4 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
6. Downingtown STEM A: 39 points, average ranking of 6.5, ranked in 10/11 ballots, highest vote: 5 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
7. High Tech A: 26 points, average ranking of 7.8, ranked in 10/11 ballots, highest vote: 5 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
8. Eastchester A: 23 points, average ranking of 8, ranked in 9/11 ballots, highest vote: 7 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
9. Great Valley A: 19 points, average ranking of 8, ranked in 8/11 ballots, highest vote: 6 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
10. East Brunswick A: 10 points, average ranking of 7.25, ranked in 4/11 ballots, highest vote: 6 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)

Also receiving votes:
Henderson A: 8 points, average ranking of 8.4, ranked in 5/11 ballots, highest vote: 6 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
Westwood A: 5 points, average ranking of 8.5, ranked in 4/11 ballots, highest vote: 6 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
Stuyvesant A: 4 points, average ranking of 9.5, ranked in 4/11 ballots, highest vote: 9 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)
HSMSE A: 2 points, average ranking of 7, ranked in 2/11 ballots, highest vote: 5 (dropped), lowest vote: unranked (dropped)

You can find a public version of the ballots here.

[mrpotatokid]

I'm not from the NE, but I've played a shockingly high number of NE teams this year and there are so many good ones! I want to talk about a few in particular.

Edison Academy- I've played these guys a ton this year for whatever reason, and they're incredibly good. Ada is a beast at lit (18/4/3 on that category at KRAMIG), and Thomas provides really good hist/geo support (18/17/8 at UW Winter). Jonathan Lee (mostly science I think?) has seemed to show a lot of improvement throughout the year, notably second scoring Edison at KRAMIG. Oh, and the win over TJ was insane. A deep nats run is definitely possible for this team.

Great Valley- Our game against Great Valley at KRAMIG was a rarity, because they beat us by a fairly large margin and I still felt okay about how we played, just because of how obviously good our opponents were. Most are aware at this point of Travis' impeccable skill at lit and fine arts (he went a combined 31/5/8 on these cats at KRAMIG), but I was also very impressed by the skill of his teammates. Neel Rege and Smeet Thaker are only freshmen apparently, which is quite scary because they are already very good at their respective cats of science and history. Collin O'Neill also seemed to have a wide breadth of knowledge which helped Great Valley out a lot. Yet another team capable of doing very well at nats.

DSTEM- Our paths didn't cross at KRAMIG, but these guys are clearly very good. Ryan Smith remains a very formidable generalist, and Ameya Bahlerao provides really good science support. They got really unlucky to not be second at KRAMIG I think, because their PPB and PPTUH were both second only to TJ. They also split with Edison and had one question games against TJ and GV.

Lexington- Obviously extraterrestrial in terms of skill. Aadi, Shishir and Alvan are all amazing generalists. I would say that these guys are the odds-on favorites at PACE because of how unbelievable Shishir is at lit. They're certainly contenders at HSNCT as well, especially if they can clean up their relatively high negs per game. Alvan eats NAQT for breakfast (40/16/16 at UW Winter).

East Brunswick- Kelvin Ni and company seem to be somewhat underrated, but they are very good. I don't really know what cats these guys do, but they are all very impressive and Kelvin in particular is a beast. Dude went 41/26/9 at UW Winter and put 6 powers past Lexington, which is nuts.

So in summary whatever they put in the water in the NE is making y'all go berserk and it's crazy how many good teams are concentrated in this one area. Happy quizbowling to all!

[Somewhere in the Stratosphere]

So, obviously I'm not a Northeasterner. But it doesn't take a Northeasterner to point out that this is absolutely insane. Four sophomores all having a 50+% power percentage on HS regs is honestly crazy lol. They're 28-1 and, in those 29 games, almost 60% of their BUZZES are powers (I basically just took power percentage but included negs in the denominator to find this). This team could genuinely three-peat as HSNCT champions and I don't think it'd be incredibly shocking.

Livingston A is also 20-0 and Robert is incredible at quizbowl. I think they're going to win HSNCT just bc they're more experienced than the super sophomores from Lexington.

[Metacarpal]

I'm not particularly active in the Northeast circuit despite living there because of weekend commitments, but Lexington went absolutely off on FARSI ( https://liqba.com/team_statistics/?team_id=2403 ) - and they're sophomores. The threepeat might be real.

[Somewhere in the Stratosphere]

I'm not particularly active in the Northeast circuit despite living there because of weekend commitments, but Lexington went absolutely off on FARSI ( https://liqba.com/team_statistics/?team_id=2403 ) - and they're sophomores. The threepeat might be real.

27 PPB ON REGS

[Ben Fry]

Is there still a PA quizbowl discord and if so could someone either drop an invite link here or dm it to me? Thanks much

[curiousmind34]

Not sure if there is a PA Quizbowl discord server, but I know there's one for the Northeast in general with a couple of PA teams on so I'll send a link to that.

(FYI if anyone wants an invite to the Northeast Quiz Bowl discord server just send me a PM)