On Monday, March 12, Mineral Point Middle and High School mathletes traveled to Iowa-Grant for the annual SWAL Math Team Contest.
For the high school, one gold, silver, and bronze are awarded in each division (unless there is a tie).
Team Award:
Gold: Pre-Calculus (Karsten Bakken, Maddie Faull, Owen Stephenson, Nick DuBois, Brady Palzkill)
Individual Awards:
Gold: Karsten Bakken (Pre-Calculus)
Silver: Jacob Wedig (Calculus)
Bronze: Kylie Sullivan (Geometry), Will Straka (Advanced Algebra), Morgan Vondra (Advanced Algebra), Maddie Faull (Pre-Calculus), Owen Stephenson (Pre-Calculus), Abby Shannon (Calculus)
The high school team is coached by Ben McWilliams and Cindi Nothem.
For the middle school, multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals can be won. Each school was allowed to bring ten participants with at least four of them being 7th graders. The schools participating this year were Boscobel, Cuba City, Darlington, Fennimore, Iowa-Grant, Mineral Point, Riverdale, and Southwestern.
Each participant worked individually and had to complete several challenging problems covering a variety of math concepts. Each problem was assigned a point value based on the level of difficulty. Students earned points by answering the problems correctly. These problems were divided into four sections. Each section had to be completed in 15 minutes.
A total of 80 students participated in the contest. One 8th grader, Drew Hottenstein, tied with two other contestants for 1st place missing one question out of the entire test. 8th graders Callie Pierce and Emma Steffes tied for 4th place. 8th grader Jared Wedig, and 7th grader Cole Ferrell, tied for 6th place. 8th grader Ella Chambers, along with 7th grader Gena Byrnes, also brought home the gold.
Earning silver medals at the contest was 8th grader Bo Hanson, and 7th graders Kylie Rule and Abel Logueflower.
Students deserving recognition, but not participating, were 8th grade alternate Owen Ward, and 7th grade alternate Maddix Jackson.
The team was coached by Middle School math teachers Mike Chambers and Deb Soper.