Clovis West students showcase their academic abilities at CSU Bakersfield Math Field Day

The Clovis West Math team at CSU Bakersfield for the Lee Webb Math Field Day event on Feb. 23, 2019. PHOTO COURTESY OF CLOVIS WEST HIGH SCHOOL

Students from Clovis West, Clovis East, Buchanan and Clovis North all competed at the Lee Webb Math Field Day at CSU Bakersfield on Feb. 23, and brought back honors to their respective schools.

Among the highlights of the Math Field Day, 17 medals were awarded to the Golden Eagles, including a clean sweep of the Varsity Chalk Talk competition, where four Golden Eagles placed in the top four spots.

“Our varsity team actually swept all of it,” Clovis West math team advisor Denise DenHartog said. “The Chalk Talk is where the students give an eight to 10-minute presentation of a complicated proof or complex problem to a panel of professors at CSU Bakersfield. They then must defend it and answer questions from the professors, and we had four students place –– one with an honorable mention and the other we took first, second and third. That was definitely our best event.”

Clovis West also received honorable mentions in the Math Bowl, along with the Broncos junior varsity team, the Timberwolves’ sophomore team. The Buchanan Bears junior varsity also received an honorable mention for the Math Bowl competition.

While the students were required to be focused throughout the competition, there was a moment for fun.

“They have this Math Humor competition which is kind of interesting. Students have to incorporate 40 math terms or phrases in either a skit, poem or song. We had three groups participate in that and two of them placed for Most Hilarious and Most Humorous,” DenHartog said. “It’s kind of just a fun event, but they do honor one of the students with an encore performance and we have never had a student achieve that before and this year we did.”

Anna Sommer’s poem that consisted of at least 40 math terms received the high praise and she performed an encore in front of 400 students in the audience.“She did an amazing job, it was so fun,” DenHartog said.

Along with the Lee Webb Math Field Day, Clovis West took part in the California Math League exam a few weeks prior to its trip to CSU Bakersfield, where Riley Hernandez scored a perfect six-for-six on the CML exam.

“That’s a series of six problems, but they are really outside-the-box questions –– creative problems. The last one we took, Riley scored a perfect six,” DenHartog said. “That’s incredibly difficult to do. He’s the first that we’ve had score that this year.”

Awards:
Math Humor: Most Hilarious – Jacob Pace and Abby Stallworth (CW)
Most Humorous – Anna Sommer (CW)

Varsity Chalk Talk:
Honorable Mention – Jake Bringetto (CW)
3rd place – Spencer Reeve (CW)
2nd place – Hailey Moore (CW)
1st place – Conner Palmer (CW)

Varsity Individual Medley:
Honorable Mention – Hailey Moore and Katherine Mendyk (CW)
3rd place – Kevin Liu (CW)
2nd place – Jake Bringetto (CW)
1st place – (Stockdale)

JV Team Medley:
Honorable Mention – Emily Hoffman, Gordon Smith, Joe VanDeVelde, Nate Rivera (CW)
Honorable Mention – Austin Lane, Adam Garabedian, Pathima Jantawansopon, Jas Moreno (CW)
Varsity Team Medley:Honorable Mention – Mason Kinsey, Cayden Sewell, Spencer Reeve, Conner Palmer
3rd place – Hailey Moore, Naasir Farooqi, Todd Yu, Isak Knox
2nd place – Ecy King, Jake Bringetto, Riley Hernandez, Katherine Mendyk
1st – (Bakersfield Christian)

Math Bowl:
– Clovis North: 2nd place JV, Varsity Honorable Mention

– Buchanan: JV Honorable Mention

– Clovis East: Sophomore team 3rd place

– Clovis West: JV and Varsity Honorable Mention

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