The Marist High School Math Team concluded its season by placing fourth at State competitions held at Illinois State University (ISU) Saturday, April 26.
The Math Team competed in a variety of events, including both team-based competitions and individual contests based on each grade level. Notable wins included Pre-Calculus Senior Team: Second Place, Junior-Senior Eight Person Team: Sixth Place, and Junior-Senior Two Person Team: Fourth Place.
“The team should feel very proud of its accomplishments, especially with winning fourth place overall as team,” said senior Nathan Angelo San Gabriel.
The state competition brought together the top students across the state to compete in a variety of challenging mathematical events and tests. The competition is conducted by the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM), a statewide organization that helps serve math teachers and promotes the best teaching practices and curriculum, along with holding annual math competitions to recognize the top students.
The success at the state competition was the result of a highly successful season for the team, who dominated the Catholic Math League South division, earning 1st place in all three competitions throughout the year. The math team also placed first overall at their regional competition in January at Crete-Monee High School.
“I did decent at state, got a [score] of 28 which at the state level is pretty good, and overall as team we did amazing,” said junior Hailey Dostal.
“Over the Catholic Math Leagues, the Regional, and at State we have done good, and we were the number one Catholic school in all of Illinois,” said junior Paul Dubiel.
Very few extracurriculars demand the consistent dedication that the Marist Math Team requires. The team meets every day after school from 2:40 – 4:00 p.m., where students practice with their peers on challenging mathematical equations and expressions.
Freshmen and sophomores practice in Mr. Nicholson’s classroom, while juniors and seniors work in Mr. Glennon’s room. In preparation for team-events, upperclassmen and underclassmen will often work together to encourage collaboration and strategies.
For the Math Team, success was not just about solving the most equations or scoring the most points, it was also about building a strong connection and friendships with each other.
“When people ask me, ‘We have talented people at our school, how come the kids at Marist are so successful,’ my line is: The students we have on the Marist Math Team love their math, I think they love each other, and they love doing math with each other. I think that’s the strength there, that it’s a genuine interest in one another.”
Both students and coaches say that another strength of the team comes from the variety of personalities each member brings, all sharing a sense of camaraderie, building greater collaboration.
“I think it’s like a dinner, if you sit there and eat potatoes all the time it’s going to get pretty boring. You mix it up, there’s different flavors, there’s different values to each of the foods you have,” said Glennon. “I think the value in our math team is that there is a unity in the interest of math, but the flavor that comes to it with peoples different experiences and different knowledge and different insights makes it all the stronger.”
“Like in athletics, you have multiple talented athletes, but the sportsmanship and teamwork allows them to soar above and beyond…Each member inspired one another to do their best, not just for themselves, but for the team as a whole,” said Gabriel.
With another successful season completed, the Marist Math Team will lose their seniors on the team as they graduate and move onto college, however the team still looks ahead to next year, believing that the next cohort of students will pick up where they left off.
“We have a very strong senior team who will be moving on. Every year I’m a bit heartbroken when the seniors leave, and then surprise surprise, the juniors step up, like a metamorphosis, and they become the matured mentor seniors of that year,” said Glennon.
