U.S. JUNIOR TEAM TRIALS
by Dan Seemiller

Trials for the U.S. Junior Boys team were held one day prior to the Pan Am Trials on February 27, 2007 in San Diego.

Seeded into the final 8 were: A.J. Brewer, Joe Cochran, John Leach and Steven Chan.

Prelimanary groups: Chance Friend nearly upset Justen Yao, up 2-1 in games and 10-all in the 4th. Yao then advanced with a five game win over Sean Lee. Charlie Sun upset both of his club mates, Joseph Wang and Peter Li, winning in five games to advance. Timothy Wang defeated Dan Seemiller, Jr. 3-1 to advance and Amoreah Saha came back from a 10-7 deficit in the fifth game to Nathaniel Curran to round out the top eight.

Group 1: Joe Cochran, Steven Chan, Timothy Wang and Charlie Sun. The top two advance to the semi-finals and make the team. Cochran defeated Wang 3-1 in a surprisingly close match while Charlie Sun continued his upset ways defeating Steven Chan. In round two, Timothy Wang defeated Sun and Chan defeated Cochran. So now all four players are tied with one win and one loss and this last round will determine the top two. Cochran easily defeated Sun 3-0 and Chan defeated Wang to advance.

Group 2: A.J. Brewer, John Leach, Justen Yao and Amaresh Sahu. Sahu played well but lost all three of his matches in five games. Justen Yao defeated John Leach and Leach defeated A.J. Brewer in a close four-gamer. A.J. Brewer needed a win over Justen Yao to advance, but Yao won the match. Justen Yao and John Leach advanced.

Semi-Finals: Joe Cochran controlled his match with Justen Yao 3-1 and Steven Chan upset John Leach in 5 games.


Finals: In the
finals, Joe Cochran won the junior team trials defeating Steven Chan 3-2. John Leach finished third by defeating Justen Yao 3-2.

Final order for the 2007 U.S. Junior Team:
1. Joe Cochran, 2. Steven Chan, 3. John Leach, 4. Justen Yao

Two alternates:
Timothy Wang and A.J. Brewer

The U.S. Junior Team will compete at the 2007 World Junior Championships in Palo Alto, California in December of this year.

(photos by Gerry Chua)