Junior varsity statistics from California Cup #4 can be found here.
This write up is the second of two and contains only the top six junior varsity teams.
1st place – Valley Christian A
Bouncing back from their 4th-place finish at Cal Cup #3 and improving upon their 2nd-place spot at Bellarmine Novice, Valley Christian A wins their first tournament of the season, led for the first time not by sophomore Omeed Askary (this time with just 43.33 PPG) by instead by sophomore Andrew Rao (9th scorer at 53.89 PPG), whose statline of 20/21/5 indicates a better aptitude for this type of set as compared with NAQT sets. Valley Christian A’s PPB was only the 2nd-highest of the tournament, averaging 15.73, topping 18 twice, but dipping as low as 12.3. While they usually managed around 2 negs a round, they got 5 in their game against “Guilder” B (250-165) and 6 against Bellarmine B (their closest game of the day that ended 260-205). It will be interesting to see at Northern California State if they are able to hold their own among some of the regularly varsity teams.
2nd place – Albany
Albany takes their second-highest place in this year’s Cal Cup series after losing just one game all day to Valley Christian A (205-275, Albany’s closest of the day) under lead scorers sophomore Andrew Liu (46.67 PPG) and senior Sean Lin (38.33 PPG). Albany had the field’s highest PPB, a commendable 16.42, which managed to hit or top 20 in three games. As likely future lead scorer, Andrew will need to work on his negs (nearly topping the field with 14), but those at Cal Cup #4 in addition to Sean’s 11 led to the team averaging over 3 a game, which is definitely not sustainable at their current get-levels. Given the transition back to an NAQT set and assuming Albany plays at full strength again, they likely stand a chance at performing reasonable well at NorCal State.
3rd place – Davis B
Davis B takes 3rd place, same as Cal Cup #1 and a step down from the last Cal Cup. Overall 10th scorer freshman Ethan Skinner (53.33 PPG) leads to team to an 8-1 finish, dropping just one game to Albany by a rather large margin (150-290), managing to answer just six tossups that round. The rest of the team is reasonably balanced (between 15.56 and 23.33 PPG each) but will definitely need to take advantage of the next year in order to fill the shoes of the current A team, as is also illustrated by a PPB of 14.95. To their credit, however, Davis B did manage to secure the field’s highest single-game PPB, hitting a fantastic 24.44 in their last game of the day, a 305-115 win over a Mira Loma/Rio Americano hybrid team. As with many other teams in their field, Davis B will need to address their negs (averaging around 3 a game), but look poised to do well in junior varsity over the next season.
4th – Evergreen Valley A
In their first write-up mention this season, Evergreen Valley A goes 7-2 to finish in their highest place of the season under lead scorer senior Charlie Tian (4th overall at 72.78 PPG), who – at 10.5 – had one of the best gets-per-neg ratios of the field. His team, however, contributes quite a few negs in addition to his approximately .5 a game, resulting in an average of around three per game. Luckily, their closest game of the day, a 235-220 win over “Haarlem” C, is likely the only one that was significantly impacted by their negs, of which there were five. Primarily, junior Ashwinee Panda’s concentration on his negs will help the team in the future, and he could possibly take over as Evergreen Valley’s new lead scorer. With Charlie, Evergreen Valley’s PPB was a nice 14.22, but it remains to be seen how the team will fare upon his graduation.
5th place – Bellarmine B
Freshmen Atul Saha (7th scorer at 62.78 PPG) and Hieu Nguyen (41.67 PPG) play as a two-man team, admirably dropping just three incredibly games over the course of the day to Berkeley (135-175), Valley Christian A (205-206), and Evergreen Valley A (130-180). Their closest game of the day was a 200-170 win over Northgate, in which they had an absurd seven negs. Aside from that game, they averaged about two a game, so negging probably isn’t a huge issue for this team and will matter less as they gain experience. That inexperience is evident in their 12.7 PPB, although they did manage to hit near 15.5 in two different games, and definitely show potential for the rest of their careers.
5th place – “Haarlem” B
“Haarlem” B also drops just three games over the course of the day, finishing tied for 5th place under lead scorer junior Larry Liang (32.5 PPG) with the rest of the team averaging in the mid-teens. Their possession of a full team during the tournament had a clear impact on PPB over Bellarmine B, allowing them to have the field’s fifth-highest of 13.38. Unlike Bellarmine B, however, “Haarlem” B did lose all of their games by relatively large margins, in increasing order to Albany (125-240), Valley Christian A (135-315), and Davis B (65-390). That game against Davis B was definitely not helped by the team’s six negs, which were again a problem in their five-point win over Lowell A, which saw four negs over its course. That, coupled with a few more close games over the day, indicate that “Haarlem” B definitely has a while to go before they will be on par with and able to fully replace the current A team.
From all of us at the NCQBA, a huge thank you to everyone who has been instrumental in the success of this year’s California Cup series. Congratulations once more to Bellarmine A and California Crosspoint, this year’s varsity and junior varsity champions!
