Junior varsity statistics from California Cup #3 can be found here.
This write-up is part two of two write-ups and contains only the top seven junior varsity teams.
1st place – California Crosspoint
California Crosspoint leaps back to a first place finish after third in their last tournament, with sophomore Benson Yi taking 4th scorer and leading his team with 74.09 PPG. As usual, he had significant support from senior Calvin Chiu (47.73 PPG), who actually powered more tossups than any other player, but the team only managed a PPB of 18.49, likely a result of the difficulty of the set since they were the highest in the field. Benson will need to work on his negs (15, second to only Albany’s Sean Lin with 22), but they had the most powers of the field (42 to “Escobar” B’s 34) and managed to only drop one game, a 270-280 loss to Crystal Springs Uplands, in which they still managed to answer 9 tossups. In their best game, they went 5/13/1 against Dougherty Valley C (510-15 win), and the rest of their games reaffirm quite well the skill and ability California Crosspoint possesses. However, this still might not be enough once Albany (Cal Cup #2 champion) has a full roster once again, so they should without a doubt continue improving.
2nd place – Davis B
Davis B takes second after Saratoga B forfeits a semi-final and they lose 150-370 to California Crosspoint. Incredibly balanced, all three of Davis B’s players were either at 36.36 (junior Henry Zhang) or 33.64 (senior Zach Hertz and freshman Ethan Skinner) PPG, a winning combination that allowed them to drop just one other game, a 255-110 loss to Northgate. There’s definitely some work to do in terms of PPB (14.65) and negs (five in two rounds and four in two others), but the latter will at least be ameliorated by Zach’s graduation, since he contributed most of those. Their negs were also likely the primary factor behind their closest game of the day, a 215-205 win over Escobar B, in which they had five, as well as that previously mentioned game against Northgate. Aside from some slight choking issues (abnormally low-scoring games here and there), Davis B is likely to remain a significant JV contender, although they will have to find someone to replace Zach (but that shouldn’t be too difficult given the depth of Davis’s bench).
3rd place – Saratoga B
Two-player Saratoga B also drops just one game to California Crosspoint (170-310) to take third with 7th scorer senior Ethan Ngai (60 PPG) and sophomore Bryant Chang (44.44 PPG). [Note: they were supposed to play Davis B for a chance to play California Crosspoint, but left before they had that chance] Their inexperience shows in a PPB of only 13.98, but they did hit 18.33 on two occasions. They had a great handle on their negs with just 9 in 10 rounds, but also a similar number of powers (11). Their closest game of the day appears to be pretty anomalous, a 180-135 win over Washington A, but for the most part, they managed to maintain pretty large margins over their opponents in each game they played.
4th place – Valley Christian A
Valley Christian A finished 8-2, dropping a game to Davis B (200-325) and being upset by Esobar B (150-265). Sophomore Omeed Askary leads the team as usual, securing 8th individual at 59.5 PPG. Per usual, the majority of his support came from fellow sophomores Andrew Rao (44 PPG) and Dhilip Raman (25.5 PPG). PPB for Valley Christian A ranked third in the tournament at 16.57, not a bad number given the difficulty of the set, but always something to be improved upon. Their negs were usually not a problem, with the exception of three rounds with 3, 4, and 5 of them, the latter two of which were the aforementioned losses, also their closest rounds of the day. While they’ve definitely got more of a handle on their negss from previous tournaments, they consistently neg more in important rounds, a dangerous combination they’ll have to address as quickly as possible.
5th place – Crystal Springs Uplands
A relatively inactive team, Crystal Springs Uplands ties for fifth place in their first junior varsity tournament of the season (after previously playing varsity once), led by junior Shasta Ramachandran (32.5 PPG) and Justin French (30.59 PPG). They dropped close games to Saratoga C (220-245) and Dougherty Valley D (225-250), both likely due to their four negs in both games, while their loss to Saratoga B was by quite a larger margin (145-285). They did, however, manage to beat first place team California Crosspoint in an extremely close game (280-270). Their PPB was quite good with respect to the field (second-highest with 17.11), but their inactivity manifested itself in the abundance of close games they narrowly managed to win. They’ll definitely need to put some work in on curbing their negs, getting four or five in four games over the tournament, but once that is taken care of and the team develops more, we might see a strong new JV contender emerge.
5th place – “Escobar” B
Missing their normal lead scorer junior Druv Muley, junior Alvin Hsu and sophomore Trevor Wu (39.47 and 31 PPG) lead “Escobar” B to tie with Northgate for 5th place, dropping just three games over the course of the day to California Crosspoint (190-415, where “Escobar” notably went 6/1/2), Lowell, and Davis B. Their loss to Lowell (125-200) was almost no doubt due to their negs, of which they had six that round, while their loss to Davis B was extremely close (205-215). They managed to beat Northgate in the round they played, although not by a very large margin (290-225). They averaged about two negs a game outside of their games against Lowell and Leland A (four), although they were luckier in the latter and managed to win by over 100 points. While their PPB of 15.6 wasn’t too special, they did had the best power-to-get ratio of the entire field, being the only team to power more than half the number of tossups they answered (34/66). Depending on their grade levels, it will be interesting to see if this team can develop into a well-balanced junior varsity or varsity power.
5th place – Northgate
Also dropping just three games, Northgate ties with “Escobar” B with a close loss to them (225-290) and two significant losses to Valley Christian (125-295 and 180-385). Sophomore (?) David Leynov leads with 37 PPG, closely supported by sophomore (?) Josh Quiambao (29 PPG) and Max Kohn (24 PPG). As was the case in Sacramento Fall earlier this season, they definitely have more work to do on the breadth of their knowledge, which has some clear holes as illustrated by their PPB of only 12.69. They have quite a ways to go, but they have definitely improved since the beginning of the season, and it will be interesting to see where the team could go, depending on the grades of the players.
