Only once has a non-easterner even placed (but he won). Prior to this year, non-east coasters had made it to finals a total of 4 times to my knowledge: once by Jack Soltysik of Illinois, once by some girl from Ankeny in Iowa who had never seen the Ocean before she came to Florida, and twice by the incomparable and unspellable Julia Kamenetsky of Iowa. Non-easterners have persistently been under-represented at the tournament–Iowa has always sent a few people, Soltysik came down from Illinois, Arkansas sent 3 last year, and Ashley Hatcher came out from Texas, but there have been very very few people overall.

Part of this is due to the dearth of major congress tournaments off the east coast; Glenbrooks, Stanford, and Berkeley are probably the only ones approaching the quality of the big east tournaments (and I’ve heard mixed reports on the last two). Either the midwest and west has to figure out how to draw the east (St. Marks looks promising here), or the midwest and west has to come out east and make some noise at Harvard, Blue Key, et al.