Nature is blooming again in springtime, and so too is New Jersey quizbowl. On March 27, Edison High School hosted 18 teams at the Eagles’ Academic Spring Tournament (or EAST for short), run on NAQT’s regular difficulty IS-201 set. As first time hosts during the age of online quizbowl, the Edison Quizbowl team did an exceptional job regardless of circumstances, running a remarkably efficient tournament.
This tournament didn’t see a lot of full New Jersey teams playing, and the top 2 places were taken by Hunter College High School and Ithaca High School of New York. Regardless of finish, all New Jersey-related staffers, TDs, and players should be proud of the effort they put into making the tournament run well.
J. P. Stevens
Perhaps underestimated in the preseason, J. P. Stevens A performed impressively at this tournament, winning their prelim bracket, snagging third place, and qualifying (again) for HSNCT. Allen Wang (69 PPG) had 30 powers, more than all but 3 other teams in the field. Furthermore, secondary scorer Joseph George put up 51 PPG, nearly 2 powers per game, with very few negs. Kushal Aluru finished with nearly 25 PPG, with 15 powers(albeit with a large amount of negs).
J. P. Stevens, however, is more than just their A team; they’ve done an extremely impressive job building a program during the online era. Their B team finished fifth overall with 22.43 PPB, only marginally behind their A team. That B team was also extremely balanced, with Nishanth Bhargava (44 PPG), Nilay Patel (39 PPG), Sophia Pan (18 PPG), and Jason Wang (12.5 PPG) all scoring double-digit averages.
Their C team maintained a 18.54 PPB and was led in scoring by the extraordinarily based Lauren Sun’s 39 PPG(and neg prize), while the rest of the team also combined for nearly 40 PPG of their own on their way to finishing solidly in the middle of the top consolation bracket.
Ridgewood
Ridgewood A finished fourth. The extremely impressive Aiden Dartley (114.5 PPG overall) continued his exceptional season, scoring 145 PPG on over four powers a game in prelims. He was supported by Nicole Pruitt, who added 25 PPG of her own. Although this team lost tough games to Ithaca and J. P. Stevens, they can take solace in the fact that as a duo, they maintained 22.56 PPB and only had 7 negs in the whole tournament, the lowest total in the whole tournament.
MCA
In MCA's senior goodbye, they finished in a commendable 6th place, with 17.44 PPB. Their scoring was also very balanced, with their lowest being 27 PPG, and highest being 51 PPG. All in all, it was a strong showing for the MCA seniors, who we wish good luck to in their future endeavors.
East Brunswick
An extremely shorthanded East Brunswick finished tied at the top of consolation. Simon Emmanuel, lead scorer on a full East Brunswick's B team, finished with 72 PPG, with just more than 1 p/g.
River Dell
Rather new to the regional quizbowl scene, River Dell finished an impressive 7th place, with balanced scoring between four of their players. Furthermore, their PPB, a strong 21.61, was on par with the top 5 teams. With such a strong first performance, they have the potential to do much more in future tournaments.
Other strong performances include: High Tech, who finished 11th, and Biotech, who with lead scorer Isabelle Papa, were able to secure 13th place and a sweep of their consolation bracket.
Out of state teams that performed well were: Hunter, who continued their tradition of going down to NJ and sweeping our tournaments. They were lead in scoring by Andrew Zeng, who put up an absurd 61 powers. Ithaca A finished 2nd, with a strong win over JP Stevens to cap off a day of comebacks and upsets.
As a whole, EAST was a phenomenal success, and the TDs deserve the credit for planning this tournament for months. NJ will be looking forward to EAST II next year.