Westview A defeats Del Norte in second game of advantaged final to win OASIS III

*Note: I think Del Norte actually finished with a PPB that was higher than ours, but there might be an error in stats that is bringing it down.

Firstly, I would like to thank Olympian High School for directing quite a wonderful tournament. It finished before 4:30 and there were 11 rounds played, which is quite impressive, even more so because the two tournament directors, Dayo and Chanwoo, had never directed a tournament before. They were incredibly nice, and they adapted very well to changes that had to be made mid-tournament.

Now, let’s get into the actual tournament:

Westview A: We were shorthanded, with only three players, but we still managed to win all our games in prelims and playoffs (not including finals.) Shahar and Junu both exhibited their skill in categories all across the board, especially Shahar in literature and science and Junu in history and geography. One thing is that our neg count, at nearly three per game, was slightly high, but that is something we have always needed to work on. Another thing was that our PPB in current events and US History was significantly lower than our PPB in all the other categories, but with our A team not being finalized yet and a large group of good players in the club, I am sure we will be able to come up with a team that can fill those holes, especially on NAQT where those categories are significantly more prevalent.

Del Norte: So we played Del Norte five(!!) times during the tournament, and all of the games were relatively close (except for the first final, but more on that later.) As far as I know, this was a full Del Norte A team, and they are really, really good. Always known as the team that does not neg often, this tournament was no different, as they averaged barely over 1.5 negs per game. What made this specific tournament different, though, was that they backed it up with nearly 5.5 powers per game. Kyle is decidedly the best music player in SoCal this year, and between him, Ajai, Manasvi, and Joshua, they have coverage of basically every category. Ajai is strikingly good at “stuff that will almost exclusively be only asked about in NAQT,” and all four of them tag team very well on history. They also wrecked us 560-135 in the first final, proving that, at times, they can be quite unstoppable.

Canyon Crest: CCA spent essentially all their prelim rounds memeing, dubiously negging on some tossups while also trying to help Jonathan accomplish his goal of maintaining a 100% power percentage (which he indeed did while also getting three powers per game.) Basically, it is safe to say that although this team has been very vocal about not caring nearly as much about Quizbowl as they did in the past, they are very good, and these stats are not completely to be trusted when trying to gauge their strength. With Wesley  not being there, and this CCA team being one that tends to perform better at harder difficulties, I advise to not base one’s opinion on them off of their stats at this tournament alone.

Westview B: Westview B impressed at the tournament, holding their own in a brutal champs bracket consisting of Westview A, Del Norte, and Canyon Crest. Freshman Pramod led them with 17 powers while only playing 7.4 games since he got stuck in traffic in the morning, and he was supported well by Jonathan, Rohan, and Aakarsh, the latter of whom is quickly improving at literature. The team had a really promising 17.36 PPB, making them a definite threat at future tournaments. Also, from what I heard, they had incredibly good coverage on pop culture/trash, which is certainly not a nonfactor on NAQT questions.

Otay Ranch: It is good to see that the Quizbowl program at Otay Ranch is still active, although they are overwhelmingly led by Adrian Ople, as evidenced by him scoring more than 74% of the points his team got on tossups. I have never seen him play, but he seems to have a good amount of breadth in his knowledge–he converted 15 out of 20 tossups against one of the Olympian house teams–but maybe not as much depth. This breadth greatly assisted him in the consolation bracket, where he got almost 114 PPG and was able to beat Serra to claim fifth place in the tournament. Hopefully Otay attends more tournaments this year so we will be able to learn more about the strengths of Adrian and his teammates.

Serra: By finishing third and 12th at BONoBo the week earlier, Serra proved that they were formidable on lower-difficulty SCOP Novice. At OASIS, Tyler led them with seven powers and 44.50 PPG, and the rest of the team contributed 9 more powers. Their PPB through their 10 rounds was 17.16, suggesting that their strength may lie there. Just like Otay Ranch, I’d have to see Serra at more tournaments in order to be able to gauge their strengths and weaknesses; they have already attended two out of three this year so let’s hope that this is a positive trend.

Olympian’s house teams were added at the last second due to drops (proving the flexibility of the TDs once more), and that is all I can really say about them.

Great job to all teams, and see you at Triton Fall!