Southwest Math Team at State Tournament

The Southwest Math Team attended the State Tournament on Monday, March 10. The competition was held at South St. Paul High School. There were 45 different schools represented at the competition. There are over 170 schools in the Minnesota State High School Math League.

Despite the fact that we didn't win...we did hold our own position in the rankings. 

Russell Pekala did well in the Invitational Event, but not well enough to be among the top ten scorers who were part of a Math Bowl (sort of like a quiz bowl) Competition. He already has plans to prepare differently for next year.

Russell was joined by Seth Colbert-Pollack, Joey Doyle, Cameron Fudeh, Paul Heltemes, Nathaniel Larson, Thomas Liu, Ben Pekala, and Eleanor Song during the individual and team competitions. 

Southwest came out of the gates fast, earning 23 of 28 points on event A. At that point, only two other schools had more points.

Event B proved more difficult. We only earned 17 of 28 points. At that point, we still had enough to be among the top ten schools.

Event C and Event D was hard for us...a similar experience for most of the schools. After the individual events, we had 51 points, good enough for 18th at the tournament.

I don't have the final ranking, but given that we only earned 6 of 24 points on the team event, I don't imagine that we moved up in the rankings. A very respectable finish to the season.

The kids were very professional and upbeat the whole day. I think the experience was certainly a positive one for all.

The team is already talking about doing better next year. Only one of the team members at the tournament was a senior, and all plan to return. They have promised to improve upon the results of this year.