MATHCOUNTS Stars Excel

Out of 38 competitors at the MATHCOUNTS state competition, three Owls have placed in the top 12, and one will advance to the state team for national competition.
Fifteen students met every Thursday afternoon from mid-September until mid-January for MATHCOUNTS practice under the guidance of Instructors in Mathematics Mr. Darin Clifft and Ms. Heather Davis.
 
Clifft fondly recalls the excitement of some of the boys as they learned about Pascal’s triangle and its use in mathematics – a concept not usually taught to middle schoolers.
 
The team consisted of eighth graders Joephen Chen, Alan Cheng, Rushil Komeravelli, Oscar Liu, Kushal Patel, Joey Paul; seventh graders Reese Deupree, Albert Ding, Joshua Gramm, James Jin, Caleb Register, Luke Tjiong, Sohum Valaulikar, Lucas Zhang, and Andrew Zhou.
 
The Chapter Competition in January saw 74 competitors with Cheng placing second, Liu placing sixth, and Ding placing 10th.
 
Cheng, Liu, and Ding advanced to take second, fourth, and ninth, respectively, at the Chapter Invitational Competition featuring 22 competitors.
 
In a normal year, a team from MUS would have gone on to participate in the state competition, but the team aspect was canceled because of COVID restrictions. For this reason, only Cheng, Liu, and Ding qualified for the virtual state competition. Out of 38 competitors at state, Cheng placed second, Liu placed ninth, and Ding placed 12th.
 
Cheng is one of four students who will represent Tennessee in the National MATHCOUNTS Competition to be held online May 10.
 
Clifft was especially pleased with the dedication of the students on this year’s MATHCOUNTS team. Some of them also attended math competition practice under the tutelage of Instructor in Mathematics Steve Gadbois, as well.
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