The New York City Invitational was held from October 16 through the 18th and marked the first Tier 4 tournament of the season. In the final round, Potomac’s Katherine Rollins nearly earned a picket fence in the round, with her cumulative rank for the round being 7 from the five-judge panel, earning her 650 points and a comfortable lead at first place for our race. Ananth Veluvali of Edina, Minnesota ranked second, edging out Peter Alisky of Smoky Hill HS in Colorado, who was bumped down to third in the points race. Other finalists were Natasha Banga of the Coppell School in Texas finishing at fourth place, Serena Klebba of Isidore Newman in Louisiana finishing fifth, and Gargi Rakhade from Bellaire in Texas rounding out the final round with a sixth-place finish.
Notable semifinalists included 2019 NSDA runner-up Pranav Pattatathunaduvil, Neil Gupta, Kelly Hu, and Anushka Kumar of Plano West in Texas, Michelle Liu of Ardrey Kell in North Carolina, Aniyah Nelson and UK Season Opener finalist Krishna Sanaka from Hawken, Ohio, Genie Enders of Scarsdale, New York, Shelby Liebler of North Mecklenburg, North Carolina, Katelyn Cai of BASIS Scottsdale in Arizona, Eric Xie of Princeton, New Jersey, and Mayin Puri of Ridge, New Jersey. Semifinalists earned themselves 125 points each for our points race, and a bid for the UKTOC.
Wrapping up the month, the Florida Blue Key tournament was held on Halloweekend, drawing competitors from across the country. Plano West’s Kelly Hu dominated the final round earning her the championship and 600 points, pushing her up to seventh place in our points race. Katherine Rollins of Potomac took second, adding to her first place lead in the points race by 450 points. Hu’s teammate Pranav Pattatathunaduvil ranked third earning 400 points, with the Californians Alex Zhang of Monte Vista and Kush Narang of Bellarmine College Prep finishing fourth and fifth respectively. Rounding out the final round was Daniel Kind of Lake Highland Prep in Florida.
Semifinalists all earned 125 points each, and included Duke finalist Mary Courtney Finn of Battle Ground Academy in Tennessee, Ryan Alappatt of Bellarmine College Prep in California, Chelsea Liu of Hawken, Ohio, Allen Zhang of A&M Consolidated in Texas, Michelle Jin of the Harker School in California, and Evelyn Huang of the Louis D. Brandeis School in Texas. In addition to all finalists and semifinalists, quarter finalists at Blue Key received bids for the UKTOC, but did not receive any points for our points race.
As MBA invites have started to be sent out to competitors, we will also be keeping up with invites, and will post all the invitees once we can.
You can find full results for the New York City Invitational here, and full results for the Florida Blue Key Tournament here.
Here are the current updated standings for the 2020-21 National Points Race: