Ten Morgan Hill student mathematicians are headed to Stanford, after scoring big in the local MATHCOUNTS Chapter Competition and qualifying for the Northern California State Competition in March.
Forty-two middle school students from Britton, Charter School of Morgan Hill, Jackson Academy of Math and Music, Martin Murphy, Oakwood School and San Martin/Gwinn participated Feb. 4 in the inaugural Coyote Valley Chapter event, which was hosted by Oakwood.
MATHCOUNTS is a National Middle School coaching and competitive mathematics program that promotes mathematics achievement through a series of fun and engaging contests. Approximately 40,000 middle school students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades from all over the United States and its territories compete every year in the chapter competitions. The highest scoring students advance to the state competition.
The Northern California State Competition is scheduled for March 18 at Stanford University.
Seventh grader Antarish Rautela from Charter School of Morgan Hill was the overall chapter champion with 44 out of possible 46 points, while teammate Kristof Sochan, an eighth grader at CSMH, placed second. Rounding out the top four were Martin Murphy eighth grader Claire Huang (third place) and seventh grader Neil Shah (fourth).
The top two school teams, separated by only half a point, qualified for the the Northern California MATHCOUNTS State Competition. Martin Murphy placed first with a team of Claire Huang, Neil Shah, Alexis Tran and Edison Zhang. CSMH finished a close second with a squad of Liam Morgan, Antarish Rautela, Kristof Sochan and Brendan Tompkins.
Those eight students have been invited to compete at the state level, where they will be joined by Brett Lang, seventh grader from Charter, and Michael Lutz, seventh grader from Oakwood.
The top 12 students (in order of ranking) who competed in a variety of math-themed events at the chapter competition were: Antarish Rautela, 7th Grade, CSMH; Kristof Sochan, 8th Grade, CSMH; Claire Huang, 8th Grade, Murphy; Neil Shah, 7th Grade, Murphy; Liam Morgan, 8th Grade, CSMH; Edison Zhang, 7th Grade, Murphy; Brett Lang, 7th Grade, CSMH; Michael Lutz, 7th Grade, Oakwood; Jacob Gonzaga, 8th Grade, Oakwood; Ethan Fang, 6th Grade, Murphy; Brendan Tompkins, 8th Grade, CSMH; and Vanessa Torres, 8th Grade, Britton.
These 12 students also competed in the Countdown Round, a Jeopardy-style, head-to-head contest where two students compete to answer math questions the fastest.=
Local students from the six area schools had been training since September in an afterschool program run by the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM), in cooperation with MHUSD.
For more information on AIM’s free after school math enrichment program, visit morganhillmath.org.
