On Saturday, March 4, 2023, a long-awaited tournament involving almost every school in the Chula Vista area commenced at 9:30 AM all the way to about 2:30 PM. Although several different schools fought and tried their best against rivals and friends, this article will only cover the games Otay Ranch participated in. We want to extend our gratitude to everyone who played against us and the tournament organizers in general.
Overall, the Otay Ranch Varsity won three out of four games and the JV team fared fairly well too. Our JV, made up of Freshmen and Sophomores, went up against the Bonita team consisting almost entirely of Juniors and were competing on their level. Unfortunately, Otay lost by only 15 points (worth about a question). In regards to Varsity, Otay Ranch dominated nearly every match, but rival teams demonstrated their competency and improvement as well. The point rivalry between the two Yechans continued, but both led the team in points. Garrett Bice shows promise as he tied with Park in terms of toss-ups in the Hilltop Match.
Bonita Vista High School
Before the match, some members from Otay Ranch and Bonita Vista got together and discussed game prospects and had fun quizzing each other. From these prior communications, both teams could probably sense that they would be a good match against each other. Our temporary team captain, Brooklyn Bonner, was good childhood friends with the team captain on the other team, which built a sense of comradery and rivalry.
Both teams fought fiercely to win their first match of the day, but in the end, Otay Ranch won with 335 points against Bonita Vista’s 215 points. Yechan Kim led with four toss-ups while Yechan Park followed close behind with three toss-ups answered. Ethan Paris, a rising newcomer, and Brooklyn Bonner scored two toss-ups each while Amelia Cortina answered one. A question about Austrian composer Mahler stumped both teams while Yechan Park fumbled a question about carbon dating by answering “half-life dating.” JV, as stated above, lost with only 15 points but played their best against a team that was much older and experienced. Garrett Bice and Michael Javier both scored two toss-ups while Sean L. and Matthew S. both scored two. Questions on Edvard Munch, Call of the Wild, John Adams (with the XYZ affair as a prompt), Long Island, and a few others eluded JV.
Chula Vista High School
Otay Ranch Varsity won against Chula Vista high 265-235. It was quite a standard match, with a lot of switching so as to not keep the game stale and allow different players to participate in the match. During the match, a certain individual may have been reprimanded by Chula Vista’s coach for raising his hands in the audience during a match… This time, Yechan Park won the toss-up game with three toss-ups to Kim’s two. But then again, Yechan Kim was switched out halfway through the match, so make of that as one will, however, Park was also switched out but brought in later on. Yechan Kim accidentally answered “Nicholas” to a question whose answer was “Phineas” (due to a fumbling of words). Ethan Paris, Edison A, and Amelia Cortina, all answered one question each. Ethan Paris’s answer to a Quetzalcoatl question was contested by Chula’s coach due to pronunciation. Fortunately, Paris’s pronunciation proved very strange but touched upon every syllable, leading the moderator to give the point to Otay Ranch.
Hilltop High School
ORHS Varsity won with 300 points against HTH Varsity's 190 points. Yechan Park and a JV member led this time with four toss-ups as opposed to Yechan Kim’s three. To Otay’s pleasant surprise, the JV member that led with Park was Garrett Bice who answered four toss-ups. Bice is only a Freshman and shows great promise and sportsmanship, a hope for ORH’s future Academic League. Yechan Kim got a question on the Rhine River incorrect as he buzzed in much too early with the answer “Danube.” Yechan Kim was again switched out halfway through the match and was not brought in. Ethan Paris and Brooklyn Bonner answered one question each, excellent work to the team all around. Apparently, an obvious question with the answer “leaf” was not answered by both teams until the last sentence, greatly angering Mr. Paris.
Sweetwater High School
At least to the author, Sweetwater’s match against Otay Ranch was the most interesting of the entire season. Sweetwater had a slight advantage as they had much faster buzzers. According to colleagues and alumni, Sweetwater’s team was generally decent but not as good as Otay's. However, this year, Sweetwater has been stepping their game up and has been the only team apart from Olympian to go over 500 points in a single game. Their speed was nothing short of impressive and rivaled Eastlake’s buzzer skills and possibly Olympian’s. Sweetwater was dominating against Otay Ranch at first, but Otay quickly caught up and the point gap was not too deep towards the last fourth of the match, at one point Otay Ranch was about to catch up to Sweetwater but Yechan Park and Kim made a few fumbles due to answering too early. Unfortunately for Otay, Sweetwater used the starting point gap and Otay Ranch’s eager recklessness to catch up to their advantage and took their time on some questions or let Otay ruin themselves. This would prove decisive, and Sweetwater won 420 points to 310 points.
There was no point-keeping for this match but Yechan Park answered his usual fine arts and mathematics while Yechan Kim scored History toss-ups along with the Anglo-Saxon/Danelaw and Nietzsche bonuses. There is no objective way of knowing as our scorekeeper ran out of battery and ran out of paper. However, we do know that Otay Ranch fared well against a surprisingly tough opponent.
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