Note: This is using the October 14th rankings. I realize that Penn Bowl rankings are coming out soon, but only two Ohio teams played Penn Bowl. Here goes nothing (if there is no letter, assume A team).
The following article was a guest contribution by Hari Parameswaran.
4. Beavercreek (107.0625) – After playing Penn Bowl with what should be the full A team for the rest of the year, I feel confident that we could once again place in the top 5 at HSNCT and top 8 at NSC. Abby is picking up on the high school literature canon very quickly. While her individual stats may not show this, she shines on bonuses, where she doesn’t have to focus having to beat out another team. Tegan is becoming a very good generalist while providing good backup for me on history. Tiffany is starting to pick up music while also buzzing on the random clues where my previous teammates, Ziyi and David, would normally buzz. Right now, our biggest weaknesses probably lie in the area of science and RMPSS. This team may not be able to beat TJHSST or Stevenson right now, but with six months of preparation and competition, I’m hoping that we could fix our holes and be a potential nationals title contender. Looking at the sets we have played so far (EFT, Penn Bowl, and IS-177), I think we are leaning to be a slightly better mACF team than NAQT team. However, this seems contradictory, considering our team leans heavily towards History/Geo/CE/Trash.
5. Miami Valley (105.8833) – It is worth noting that this squad put up 25.6 PPB at the very first kickoff tournament. John John and William are themselves quite a fearsome duo, coming very close to breaking the Hoppes-Mikanowski Limit. Both of them cover most of the distribution very well, with their biggest holes probably being in history, philosophy, and social science. However, their biggest problem thus far seems to be scaling up and their hesitation to neg. MVS has shown their ability to scale up in terms of bonuses with their showings at last year’s NSC and this year’s Penn Bowl, but they struggle to beat the top teams to tossups in crucial games. While I understand one should not focus on statistics like power percentage, since “tens can win games,” a lot of buzzes between good teams will naturally occur in the first half of a question. This also ties in with their hesitancy to neg. From playing with and against him at multiple tournaments, including NASAT, I’ve noticed that John John really doesn’t buzz unless he’s 150% sure that he’s right. This is good to a certain extent, as it prevents you from needlessly throwing away tossups. However, I’ve noticed that in high-level games, these sorts of risky buzzes are necessary to win games. They don’t necessarily have to be frauds, but even when you are only 80% sure. If they can get over these humps, MVS could be a solid top 10 team by the end of the season.
18. Solon (89.3417) – Over the past three years, Solon has rebuilt their team quite well. At MVS Fall Kickoff, they put up 22.7 PPB, which was the third-highest of the field. They were also the only other team other than us to beat a solid Glasgow A team. Timmy Huang is an excellent played who has a lot of depth, as shown by his stats from last year’s NSC. Pranit Behara is a great fine arts player (I can only assume so by his stats, since I haven’t played them at all this year). Neel Mehta and Sam Oguntoyinbo make a great duo on science, especially in locking down biology. Sam has especially deep pockets of biology knowledge as seen from his buzzes at last year’s NASAT. He has also shown a decent amount of generalism as seen from his performance at the Solon Fall Tournament. If the team continues this upward trend, I think that they could easily do better than their T32 performance at HSNCT and 54th at NSC.
71. Beavercreek B (61.1292) While losing Tegan and Tiffany to A, this team will still retain growing generalist Ellie and excellent trash player Roman. I haven’t talked to my coach as to who will replace those two spots, but my guess would be that one would go to Will, a growing history specialist, and another freshman. Expect them to be an on-and-off contender for local tournaments and possibly upset some better teams.
72. Dublin Scioto (60.9458) – With the graduation of superstar Clark Smith, the captainship has been passed down to fine arts specialist Eddy Liu. Even without Clark, the team put up a decent PPB of 18.3 and power numbers. At a glance, Eddy seems to have expanded beyond his fine arts niche and into other subjects. However, for them to be a contender at the state and national levels, they must see improvement from their history player Gabe and their science player Vishvam.
85. Copley (54.0833) – After losing seniors Tommy Varley and Srikar Dudipala, this team is also undergoing another rebuilding phase. Their new captain is the sophomore, Nathan Hazlett. Due to a lack of exposure, I’m not really sure what he specializes in, but in order to maintain their past level of performance, they will have to develop players who specialize in literature and history, which Tommy and Srikar specialized in, respectively. While they may not be a statewide contender within the next year, they should develop into a solid squad given some time.
90. Northmont (52.5) – This team is returning all of their members, captained by literature specialist Samantha Street. Samantha and their history player, Sean Scranton, already have a decent amount of depth. Other than that, I don’t really have a lot of information on them due to having not played them yet this year. I predict that this year, they should be able to make playoffs at HSNCT. Given two more years to improve, they will be a very good squad.
I tried to make my opinions as accurate and fact-based as possible. If you have any qualms with the information presented, feel free to message me.
Hari Parameswaran is currently a senior at Beavercreek High School in Beavercreek, Ohio.
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