I would like to thank our entire MATHCOUNTS community for all the enthusiasm and encouragment and support you have contributed to the team's success this year.
I can't tell you how much it means to me to see so many happy, engaged, hard-working problem solvers coming together each Friday to work with one another and with our awesome student coaches!
I am happy to announce that the heegMATHCOUNTS team ranked FIRST out of 23 teams at chapter, for the second year in a row. The team contest was extremely tough this year, all four members of our scoring team made the countdown round, and the team's margin of victory was by far the largest I've seen in 11 year's of coaching MathCounts!
Congratulations to Schuyler (1st place individual and team captain), Matthew (2nd place individual), Jay (10th place individual) and Wyatt (11th place individual.)
Matthew was also the runnerup in the unofficial Countdown Round.
I am also pleased to report that every single member of our eight-person delegation of chapter placed in the TOP HALF of the 124 contestants yesterday--that is a truly remarkable accomplishment, given that the other contestants were the top 4 to 8 math students from schools much larger than the total pool of homeschoolers.
Our alternate team had four students who had never before participated in a math team competition, but if their score had been official, it would have ranked ahead of the scoring teams from several traditional powerhouse schools like Shaker and Van Antwerp, which have gone to state many times and finished high there. (Shaker tied for first place in the state four years ago.)
I would like to make a special MOST IMPROVED award this year for the newest and youngest member of our team, Caleb, who stepped in to replace Ben when his schedule did not allow him to continue on the alternate team. Caleb, your mathematical growth in four weeks has been simply astronomical and phenomenal! I have never seen anything like it in 11 years of coaching MathCounts.
Both Caleb and MaryAnna showed dramatic improvement between school and chapter this year, and I would also like to acknowledge and recognize the excellent help, support, and encouragement provided to both of them by Leah, both at Friday practices and outside those practices.
Will has also demonstrated very remarkable mathematical development this year and was the high-scoring member of our alternate team. Both Will and Leah ranked above the high scoring members of many scoring teams at the competition.
Next, I would like to express our debt of gratitude to our very able and dedicated student coaches: Beth, Catherine, Drew, Lindsay, Luke, Neil, and Susannah, who contribute so much help and enthusiasm and work so hard to build a thriving, harmonious enviroment for collaborative mathematical problem solving.
Last but certainly not least, I would like to celebrate all the PARENTS, who have done so much to impart a love of learning and have built a wonderful foundation for the development of mathematical problem solving skills in their children.
We particularly appreciate the willingness of a number of student coaches and parents to participate in the Second Annual Parents & Coaches Countdown Round, where the students got a chance to see that we all make mistakes, especially under pressure and when rushing through problems too quickly. We should note that our students in the audience were able to solve a number of problems that had stumped both parents or coaches competing.
(My personal specialty as a coach, by the way, is making wrong inadvertent wrong answers which the students can enjoy catching and correcting.)
Mathematically yours,
Mary O'Keeffe
