Mainstreet Daily News
The Buchholz High School math team won its 15th state championship over the weekend and will compete for its 14th national title in July.
BHS defeated perennial rival American Heritage Broward at the Florida Mu Alpha Theta competition in Orlando, according to an Alachua County Public Schools press release. Teams earn points based on the results of a wide variety of individual and team categories. BHS accumulated 4740 points out of 5000 possible, while American Heritage earned 4651.
Some of the younger team members were nervous and didn’t perform as well as expected early in the competition, said coach and BHS math teacher Will Frazer in the release. As a result, the team was actually behind on the first day.
“Once they started to relax we caught back up and on the second day we were all performing at the top of our game and pulled away,” Frazer said. “I think the closeness of the outcome has our kids motivated to work harder for nationals in July, and that is a good thing.”
Gainesville High School’s math team took 10th place overall in the competition, while Eastside took 14th place.
“I’m very proud of all our amazing young mathletes,” said Alachua County Public Schools Interim Superintendent Shane Andrew, who traveled to Orlando for the awards ceremony. “They are such terrific representatives for their schools and the district.”
BHS won a total of 239 individual and team trophies at the competition. That included first place trophies for the pre-calculus, calculus, hustle, relay and poster teams. Members of those teams included Andrew Xing, Katie He, Hailey Lin, Phillip Matchev, Jake Frazer, Samuel Kim, Kevin He, Erick Jiang and Eileen Lai.
Individual first place trophies went to Jake Frazer, Andrew Xing, Kevin He, Samuel Kim, Katie He, John Sin, Edward Jeong, Erick Jiang and Warren Craft.
The BHS team will be competing for its 14th national title when it heads to the 2022 National Mu Alpha Theta competition in Alexandria, Virginia scheduled for July 10-15.
