Bellarmine Novice Results and Analysis

Statistics from Bellarmine Novice can be found here.

 

This write-up only focuses on the top six teams.

 

1st place – Menlo-Atherton

Menlo-Atherton takes first place for the first time this season, led by tournament 7th scorer junior Mason Seymour (60 PPG), who made the jump from B team at Palo Alto Novice, surpassing A’s former lead scorer junior Griffin Kardos. They hugely improved their PPB from last time (15.36 to 22.48) and have good control of their negs (usually around two a game). However, they did drop games to Bellarmine C (senior Gavin Pereira stepping in to fill the spot of a no-show team) by an understandably large margin and Valley Christian A by a significantly smaller margin (270-345). However, they did go on to defeat Valley Christian A in a blowout final (535-155), in which they went 5/10/1. Mason will definitely be a name to look out for as he leads the team through the remainder of this season and the next.

 

2nd place – Valley Christian A

6th scorer sophomore Omeed Askary (70 PPG) leads Valley Christian A once again, dropping only two games to Davis D (215-330) and Menlo-Atherton in the final (after narrowly beating them earlier). That loss wasn’t helped by their four negs, although they usually kept that under control in other rounds. They still need to work on expanding their knowledge to help with bonus conversion (18.95) and Omeed could use some more support, especially from Dhilip Raman (28 PPG). Impressively, they managed to answer 15 tossups in three different rounds, but there are clear gaps in their knowledge that will need filling in before they can progress much farther.

 

3rd place – Davis A

Regularly Davis B, A is led by tournament 9th scorer freshman Ethan Skinner (57 PPG) and senior Alex Chen (50.5 PPG) to a 9-1 finish, the tournament’s best. Their only loss of the day came to Valley Christian A (210-325), but notably had a PPB of 26.67 in that round, compared to their overall 17.43, which could definitely use some improvement. Their closest win of the day was over their own B team (235-210), but for all but one game of preliminaries, they managed to keep their opponents below 100 points. With some concentration on bonus conversion, this team could be ready to step in to fill out the varsity Davis team upon graduation of the current members., especially Ethan.

 

4th place – Monta Vista

Finishing significantly better than in their last tournament (4-4 at Cal Cup #2), Monta Vista is led by freshman Anjini Venugopal (3rd scorer at 79.05 PPG) to a 7-3 finish, with close losses to Davis B (180-200) and Davis A in their final game (240-285). Their only other losses came from games against Menlo-Atherton, with predictably large margins. Their performance has some consistency issues to address, illustrated by a clear win over Bellarmine C (280-150) but a very narrow one over Challenger-Berryessa (165-155). Once Anjini’s main supports (two players in the teens of PPG) improve and help boost their overall PPB (16.83), they could find themselves doing considerably well in the JV circuit and perhaps even the varsity one, depending on Anjini’s performance through the rest of her career.

 

5th place – Bellarmine C

Regularly on Bellarmine’s A or B teams, senior Gavin Pereira stepped in to take the place of a no-show team, predictably securing overall top scorer at 98.75 PPG, as experience solo players are apt to do. He won a close game over California Crosspoint (240-210) but dropped games to Cupertino A (160-275, in which he notably negged 7 times) and Monta Vista (150-280, in which he negged 6 times).

 

5th place – California Crosspoint (formerly Chinese Christian)

California Crosspoint ties for 5th with Bellarmine C, going 6-3 under lead scorer senior Calvin Chiu (4th scorer at 75 PPG). He more than doubled his PPG from Cal Cup #2, but he also didn’t have the intense competition that was present then. They narrowly lost a game to Bellarmine C (210-240), but lost games to Davis A and Valley Christian A by margins of 105 and 200 points, respectively. They started off the day negging 2-3 times per round, but composed themselves towards the end and pulled it down to about 1 a game. They had the second-highest PPB of the field (19.47 to Menlo-Atherton’s 22.48), but that could always use some improvement. The rest of the team is going to have to do some serious developing over the remainder of this season to fill the space that Calvin is going to leave upon graduation.

 Thank you to those who staffed and played!