Math Team’s senior team placed second overall and within the top five at the Fox Valley Conference meet.
“Our next meet is the Regionals competition in February, where we have the opportunity to qualify for State,” said captain Morgan Schneider. Even though Central is their biggest rival, they still continue to cheer them on at competitions.
“I would say our biggest ‘rival’ is Grayslake Central because many of us are competing against friends on that team. We do cheer for each other, though, and generally both of our teams stick together when we do go to State,” Schneider said.
Sponsor Alex DeGroh agrees.
“It is a friendly rivalry. We hold a cross town competition every fall to get ready for the season. This year we lost the cross town competition to Central. We did not place in Conference, but many of our students are in sports and could not attend the meet. I hope we beat most of the conference teams when we get to Regionals next month,” DeGroh said
The team has been preparing since September. They had to make even more preparations that they are not used to because of the lack of members, but they aren’t worried.
“We have shrunk over the last few years, but we are definitely excited for next year because some of the incoming freshmen seem very excited to join,” Schneider said. “Our goal for the year is to do well at the Regional competition in order to qualify for State. We prepare by meeting every Wednesday to go over topics and questions on tests from previous years and packets of regional and state tests from the last several years,”
DeGroh has confidence in his team but is concerned about the lack of underclassmen.
“We are in a building phase right now. We only have a couple of freshmen and sophomores, which makes it nearly impossible to win competitions. Our junior and senior teams are strong,” he said.
Regionals will be held on February 28 at NIU. Both DeGroh and Schneider are confident in their team.
“I’m so excited and hopeful for the future of the Math Team. We have been very strong in the past, and I hope that we can start getting people really excited about math,” Schneider said.