Statistics from California Cup #1 can be found here (varsity) and here (junior varsity).
This write-up contains the top seven varsity teams and the junior varsity teams that placed within the top two brackets.
VARSITY:
1st place – Bellarmine A (PACE NSC qualification)
Going undefeated in their first tournament of the season, all-senior Bellarmine A shows that they are once more a force to be reckoned with. Jarek Jankowski and Alejandro Buendia led the team, both sitting at 61.11 PPG and tying for 4th scorer, with 6th scorer Jonchee Kao following closely at 56.25 PPG. Missing their usual fourth player Abhishek Aditham, the team wasn’t at their full balanced strength but still had no problem hitting a PPB of 23.85 and sweeping the tournament. Their closest game of the day was a 365-335 win over “Guilder” A, but this was likely more due to Jarek sitting out half the game than any other factor. Their ability to power 10 tossups in six of their 11 rounds and almost doubling their gets in powers (94/50) reaffirms the likelihood of Bellarmine A winning the varsity Cal Cup series again barring serious improvement by players on Saratoga or other potential challengers.
2nd place – Saratoga (PACE NSC qualification)
Bruce Lou takes first scorer in his first tournament of the season with 117.27 PPG, leading his team to a 9-2 record with losses only to Bellarmine A. While Bruce himself is enough to easily take the team to second place, without more support from teammates, he wasn’t able to defeat a partial Bellarmine A (their two rounds ending 330-405 and 230-490), much less a full-strength team. Saratoga’s PPB was solid at 23.19 and, with less than a neg per game, they shouldn’t have any trouble taking second at any tournament, but it will take some serious work if they want to do any better.
3rd place – Dougherty Valley (formerly “Haarlem”) A (PACE NSC qualification)
Dougherty Valley’s first foray into a varsity tournament ends with them placing higher than expected, even missing two of their regular players. Senior Eric Chen takes tournament second scorer at 67.5 PPG and with main support senior Cody Zeng (8th scorer at 42 PPG) gets the team to a very solid 22.66 PPB. Unlike the two teams they placed below, they were unable to get more powers than gets, but only by a little (53/56), and they also beat “Guilder” A by a much larger margin than Bellarmine A (450-275 to 365-335). Ultimately, they upset both “Guilder” A and Palo Alto A (320-290) and placed significantly higher than would’ve been predicted, and it will be interesting to see if they are able to maintain or improve their performance.
4th place – “Guilder” A
“Guilder” A shows that they are capable of scaling up to a varsity level, although they certainly have work to do before they can compete against any of the three above teams. They had the tournament’s 4th best PPB at 21.93 but also dropped games to five teams (although four of those were relatively close). Senior Karthik Srivatsan (9th scorer at 41 PPG) and sophomore William Scott (37.5 PPG) once again led the team, this time with the support of senior Alex Lei (30.5 PPG). They were also able to come close to getting the same numbers of powers and gets (52/57), but had neg numbers like those of Bellarmine A and Dougherty Valley A, which they weren’t able to support without getting more tossups. “Guilder” A actually outscored Dougherty Valley A and would’ve had more raw points (excluding bonuses) had they not gotten two more negs, which could indicate a possibility of an upset of the Cal Cup #1 Dougherty Valley A team that may or may not carry over to the team at full-strength.
5th place – “Escobar” A
“Escobar” A finishes with the same record as “Guilder” A and Palo Alto A (5-5) led by 3rd scorer Kelvin Lu (66.5 PPG, also highest negs at 16) but had a two point drop in PPB from the team above (19.6). They will definitely need to work on their negs (tournament highest at 24), but they were also able to get more powers than gets (59/42), which shows a good depth of knowledge. With further development of supports Karthik Bharathala (29 PPG) and sophomore Anup Hiremath (14 PPG), there might be some “Guilder” A upsets in the team’s future.
6th place – Palo Alto A
Palo Alto A puts up a surprising finish, going just 5-5 with losses to every team placing above them, with the exception of “Guilder” A (305-260 victory), instead losing 250-300 to “Guilder” B. Junior Trevor Filseth has improved the most since Cal Cup #4 (17.5 PPG to tournament 10th at 41), followed closely by last year’s lead scorer senior Max Krawczyk (30 PPG at Cal Cup #4 to tournament 11th at 39). Their PPB was good at 21.18 and with some work, they stand a chance at upsetting “Escobar” A at some point.
7th place – Davis A
Davis A makes their debut in a varsity field, finishing 4-6 with a PPB of 20.1. Junior Anthony DiCarlo leads his team once more with 35 PPG while the rest of his teammates hover in the mid-twenties. They’ll definitely need some work on scaling up in difficulty and facing intense competitors but they can still hold their own against mid-level competitors like “Escobar” A, Palo Alto A, and “Guilder” A, who they narrowly defeated 290-270. I’d expect some shuffling among Davis A and the three teams above them, but they aren’t likely to place much higher without serious improvement.
JUNIOR VARSITY:
1st place – Chinese Christian A
Sophomore Benson Yi doesn’t lead in scoring for the first time this season, taking second at 106.67 PPG, but he does lead his team to an impressive undefeated finish supported by senior Calvin Chiu, who finishes as 6th scorer at 60.56 PPG. Not once did their opponents manage to score any higher than 250 points on them and their closest game was a 345-250 victory over Bellarmine B. Even more impressive, they managed to power 14 tossups and answer three others in their game against Leland A, and both Benson and Calvin managed to get more powers than 10s in every game they played (overall they nearly doubled their gets in powers [81/49]). This, combined with a PPB of 23.77, indicates very strongly that Chinese Christian A will also be following “Guilder” A and Davis A and making the transition to varsity, where it has yet to be seen how well they will scale up, but will likely perform at the same level or slightly below as the aforementioned teams.
2nd place – Bellarmine B
Bellarmine B finishes 8-2, dropping games to Davis B (305-360) and Chinese Christian A and hitting a respectable PPB of 21.64. They show potential to be as balanced as Bellarmine A, with tournament 9th scorer Kevin Chang at 55 PPG and followed by freshman Atul Saha (41.5) and Hieu Nguyen (29.5). While they are definitely competitive, there was a clear gap between their statistics and Chinese Christian A’s, especially in their overall PPG (374.5 to Chinese Christian A’s 522.2). Bellarmine B was also missing Kevin for the last two games, in which the points they scored dramatically decreased. There’s a chance that they could’ve beaten Chinese Christian in their last round had they been at full strength, give how close the game was (250-345). However, once Chinese Christian A moves to varsity, Bellarmine B will almost definitely lead JV fields unless Davis B and Valley Christian improve.
3rd place – Davis B
Davis B also finished with a record of 8-2, dropping their only games to “Escobar” B (270-250) and Bellarmine B (close half-packet game at 105-190). Sophomore Eliot Williams once more leads the team as the tournament’s 5th scorer at 63 PPG, supported by two teammates in the mid-20s. They have a solid PPB of 21.36 and with some serious work might manage to upset Bellarmine B at some point in the season.
4th place – Valley Christian
Sophomore Omeed Askary leads his team as usual, this time with 54.38 PPG as the tournament’s 10th scorer, closely followed by sophomores Andrew Rao (41.67) and Dhilip Raman (31.67). They had a higher PPB than Bellarmine B (21.75), but they also had more negs than either of the first or second place teams, which is a problem they’ll have to work on. Their loss to Davis B was their one of their closest of the day (255-300, opposite of their win over Dougherty Valley D) and they also out-performed Davis B on bonuses, which may forecast some shuffling between the two teams in future events.
Thanks from the NCQBA to all those who played and staffed the largest tournament in Bay Area history!
