The Math Team website is a perfect representation of the team. Listed below “HHS 2012-2013 Math Team: We’re gonna rock it! :-)” and “Team Motto: ‘You’ve got a problem? Yo, I’ll solve it!’” sits a list of all of the individual and team accomplishments from the 2010-11 and 2011-12 competition seasons.
The 2010-11, the team’s first competition season, boasts state qualifiers in five different events.
The 2011-12 season brought even more success. In the team’s sophomore year of competition, 12 students qualified for state, with 11 events placing at the 4AA regional competition. The team also took second at the Hononegah Invite and the Fox Valley Conference tournament.
The team’s fun-loving attitude has not gotten in the way of consistent success.
For the first time, the Math Team has a solid base of experience to rely on. The Class of 2013 has played a key part in the Math Team’s growing success over the past three years, including several state qualifiers returning from last year. Math teachers and Math Team coaches Shelly Kish and Laura Jenkins refer
to them as “The Founding Fathers of Math Team.” The solid foundation of 13 seniors, all veteran mathletes, will lead the team to what Kish hopes to be the best season for Math Team yet.
“Our senior class is extremely strong and [the seniors] have been involved since we started Math Team,” said Kish. “They are all very strong mathematically.”
The junior/senior team’s roster includes 22 students, and the freshman/sophomore team contributes an additional 25, making up the entire 47-student team.
As seniors, Nick Allen, Ian Bubula, Bart Celer, Ryan Ingrassia, Mike Lisack, Margaret Tiedt, Pete Gorski, Tarun Yandamuri, Sean Dalton, Jacob Palecki, Brandon Kavanaugh, Akshay Patil, and Daryon Shariati compete at the Pre-Calculus level in the regional and state competitions hosted by the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM).
While Math Team is not an IHSA activity, there are established rules and formats for the competitions. The teams are broken down into different levels: Algebra I (freshman), Geometry (sophomore), Algebra II (junior), and Pre-Calculus (senior).
Within each level are individual events, a two-person team, and an eight-person team. There is also an oral mathematics competitor and a calculator team, made up of one student from each grade level, and one additional student from any of the four levels. The events compete for individual awards, and the scores of all the events are added together
to determine an overall winter.
Last year, the team placed second in the Division 4AA regional competition, losing only to Hononegah, who also beat Huntley at the Hononegah Invite. This year, the team is looking to take home a regional title.
“Our regional goal is to beat Hononegah,” said Kish. “As always, for Fox Valley, it’s to beat Cary Grove.”
The Cary Grove placed first at the Fox Valley Conference competition in 2012, sending Huntley home with a second place trophy.
While the team is proud of the numerous trophies and medals it has accumulated over the last two seasons, it is looking to add to its list of awards. Kish would like to see the entire Pre-Calculus team qualify for state, which requires the all-senior team to earn the highest combined score of any school at the regional competition at the Pre-Calculus level.
“I do think our seniors have a chance to do that as a team,” said Kish.
In Division 4AA, the largest division in the ICTM, Huntley’s team competes against teams with more experience and a larger student body to draw from, including Stevenson High School and the Illinois Math and Science Academy.
Stiff competition makes placing at the state event at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign difficult. For now, the team is focusing on advancing every event to the state level.
“I would love to see our eight person team qualify for state and calculator qualify for state,” said Kish.
The Math Team’s first competition will be the Hononegah Invite on Jan. 26, followed by the Fox Valley Conference meet in mid-February, the ICTM regional on Feb. 23, and the state competition on May 4.