The Math Team placed especially high at a regional competition February 27, allowing student Jackson Hajer to compete at a state competition. Math Team co-sponsor Kevin Dybas is pleased with the victory.

“Overall the team does well. We compete against some pretty rigorous schools, so this competition there’s a minimum qualifying score that students have to meet, and most schools didn’t even hit the minimum qualifying score, so most schools only qualified based off of getting first place,” Dybas said.

Math Team competitor Jason Kenny, who placed fourth in a geometry competition, noted that stress levels were high during the competition.

“It was kind of a rush at regionals this year because it turns out Jackson was going to be participating in the oral competition with senior Marley Santoro instead of with our eight person, so it kind of hurt our team a little bit,” Kenny said.

Math Team co-sponsor Melissa Gordon felt that the team was not performing as well as it could have.

“The math team has been performing a little lower than it has the past few years,” Gordon said. “One reason is that we have had a lot of conflicts with our competition schedule causing us to have to compete without a full team.”

Math Team competitor Jackson Hajer is going to state for his second-place victory in geometry. He does have concerns as to how well he will do at the state competition.

“The state competition is always much harder in terms of the questions,” Hajer said. “I’m not expecting to place very high but I’m just hoping to get into the top 100.”

Kenny hopes to see greater success for the math team next year.

“I plan within the next few years to make it to state for individual and I hope that next year our eight-person team is also able to make it, because we have a strong team next year, I believe,” Kenny said.

Overall, Hajer has enjoyed his time with the Math Team.

“It’s a pretty tight group of kids,” Hajer said. “We know each other pretty well, and we all have some good laughs, so it’s always nice to have that on a Friday morning.”

The state competition will be held May 7.The Math Team will continue its hard work in preparation for that event.