Medford students excelled in math competitions

Things were adding up well for Medford Area Senior High’s math team when the coronavirus pandemic halted its progress before the season’s third and final meet.

Competing amongst about 1,200 students in the Central Math League, which is based out of Stevens Point, Medford was sitting in second place in Division 2 of the four-division league. Medford had 859 team points, trailing first-place Lakeland (928) and leading third-place New London (791).

“The math league is designed such that students participating in each category should be enrolled in that corresponding class at that school,” MASH math team coach and teacher Brad Borchardt said. “For example, a student in calculus can’t be on the geometry team. The writers of the tests try to include content that the students might be concurrently learning in their high school course. Even though the topics might be similar, the thinking each problem requires usually takes some creativity or processes different than the students are accustomed to in their school homework.”

Teams enter four students in three different categories –– geometry, algebra and advanced math –– for a total of 12 students in that particular meet. The top three scores in each category are used to determine a team’s total score for the day.

Medford’s team score was 429 in meet one, held in November, and 430 in meet two, held in January. Meet three would have been held in April. Lakeland was the Division 2 winner in both meets with scores of 470 and 458. New London edged Medford for second in meet one, 455-429.

Geometry has been a strong point for the Raiders with 193 points in meet one and 145 points in meet two. In the first meet, Allison Dew was the highest scoring student out of 41 Division 2 entrants with a score of 72. She was fourth overall out of 191 geometry competitors. Garret Venzke earned a score of 62 to place sixth in the division, Braxton Crabb was seventh at 59 and Saskatoon Damm was eighth at 57.

The geometry problems got more challenging in meet two, but Medford still did well, led by Crabb’s score of 60, which was first among 42 Division 2 entrants. Damm’s 45, Venzke’s 40 and Dew’s 30 kept them among the league leaders. Damm was third in the division in that meet and Venzke was fourth.

Crabb wound up winning the division’s individual title with 119 total points, while Dew, Venzke and Damm all tied for fourth with 102.

Medford took a big jump from meet one to meet two in algebra, going from 94 points to 132. Martha Miller posted a score of 50 in the second meet to place third out of 42 entrants. With her twomeet total of 80, she ranked sixth out of 53 students in Division 2. Reilly Nutting finished one spot ahead of Miller cumulatively with 82 points. He was at 34 in meet one and bumped up to fifth place in the second meet with a 48. Nickolas Frenzel had 64 points to finish 15th in the division after scores of 30 and 34. Katie Lybert was 14th in meet two with a 34. Autumn Krause competed in meet one.

In advanced math, Medford earned team scores of 142 and 153. Aidana Kaukenova went from a 38 to a 55 for a total score of 93 and finished 10th out of 55 Division 2 students in the final standings. Kaleb Voight earned a 58 in meet two, which was good for ninth out of 40 students that day. Borchardt entered Voight as an alternate in meet one and Voight earned a 66 that would have put him in the top 10 overall.

Carlos Herrada finished 12th in the final standings with scores of 54 and 35 for a total of 89. Kiersten Crass was 12th in meet one with her score of 50. Preston Pope placed 14th in the cumulative standings with 78 points. He earned scores of 38 and 40. Lybert (30) and Chloe Werner (27) competed as alternates in meet one, while Werner (40), Krause (38) and Jake Cipar (31) were advanced math alternates in meet two.

In all, Borchardt said about 30 students are involved with the team.

“The kids are so talented and deserve great praise for not only their ability, but also their work ethic and their grit in working through challenging problems,” Borchardt said.