Academic Decathletes place 3rd in California

 

Yosemite High School’s Academic Decathlon team took third place at the state meet in Division 3 this past weekend. Pausing after the competition with all their medals are: Coach Betsy Blum, Brad Lohuis, Hilary Bowman, Matthew Casner, Saranya Srinivasan, Michael McCarty, Luke Millar, Nicole Koczanowicz, Alec Bohigian and Deborah Brown, coach.

 

by Lacey Rees - of the Sierra Star

MODESTO — Yosemite High School placed third in the state for the Academic Decath­lon in Division 3 this past weekend.

The team of eight won 38 medals: six gold, nine silver and 23 bronze.

The team also swept the art competition with three gold medals. Coach Deborah Brown credits the wins to the trip the team took this past summer to Chicago where all the art pieces were displayed in a museum.

In addition the team took third in the Super Quiz. They competed against 14 schools.

The second place team in the state meet was from Tuolumne County, Yosemite’s rival. First place was from Sutter County.

The members of the team were Saranya Srinivasan, Matt Casner, Hilary Bowman, Nicole Koczanowicz, Brad Lohuis, Alec Bohigian, Michael McCarty, and Luke Millar.

The students competed in three divisions according to their grade point average: Honors, scholastic and varsity.

Mrs. Brown and Betsy Blum, teachers at Yosemite, were the coaches for the team.

“This is a new team and they worked hard and they did it. They just went for it,” says Mrs. Blum. “I just can’t say enough about their hard work.”

Those earning medals in the various categories are as follows:

Overall — Saranya Srini­vasan, silver; Matthew Casner, silver; Hilary Bowman, bronze.

Art — Saranya Srinivasan, Hilary Bowman, Brad Lohuis, all gold.

Economics — Saranya Srini­vasan, bronze.

Essay — Brad Lohuis, gold; Matthew Casner, gold; Hilary Bowman, silver; Saranya Srini­vasan, bronze.

Interview — Matthew Cas­ner, silver.

Language and literature — Nicole Koczanowicz, gold; Saranya Srinivasan, bronze; Hilary Bowman, bronze.

Mathematics — Saranya Srinivasan, silver.

Music — Saranya Srinivasan, silver; Nicole Koczanowicz, silver; Brad Lohuis, silver; Hilary Bowman, bronze.

Science — Matthew Casner, silver.

Speech — Matthew Casner, bronze.

Each team member also collected bronze medals for being the third-place team overall and for the Super Quiz.

Yosemite lost to the second place school by only 15 out of 500 questions and lost to first by only 25 questions.

“It was an extremely tight race,” says Mrs. Brown. ”We feel proud of our team, especially with a rookie team and rookie coaches.”

Next year, Division 3 schools will be allowed to go to the national contest. The winner “will be us,” predicts Mrs. Brown.

“We already have our curriculum and the team is ready to start off studying for the next year’s events,” she says. The Super Quiz will be on oceanography.

The team will travel to New York Metropolitan Museum this summer to view specific paintings from the Roman­tic Period.