In only its second year of competition, the HHS Math Team has finished in second place in its division. Coached by our venerable physics teacher Doc (Dr. DeFranzo), the team competes against West Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, Bridgewater-Raynham, Rockland, Abington, and Whitman-Hanson. There are six other divisions in the league which contains high school from all across southeastern Massachusetts. The HHS team is captained by seniors Megan Scribner and David Raab.

Starting in September and continuing throughout the competition season, the team meets once a week on Tuesday nights in Doc’s room. Practices go roughly an hour and a half and include all different categories of math from Algebra 1 and Geometry to the more complicated trig identities of PreCalculus. As such, there is a place on the team for students from all grades at HHS and in fact this year saw a good number of freshman competing. While it’s over for this year, you can always start practicing rounds for next year as most of the general topics remained unchanged from year to year.

That being said, the Team is always looking for new members and everybody should join because Math Team math, as anyone on the team can tell you, is very different from the math you do in class. “Week to week you’re learning some new trick for a certain type of equation and sometimes you learn a new concept all together,” said Scribner, echoing many of her teammates sentiments. While only 10 students can compete in any one meet, there is always room for alternates and Doc decides on who competes based on scores in practice rounds held during meetings.

Math Team competitions are an event that you really have to participate in to truly appreciate. There are five, 10-minute rounds that are taken by individuals and then everyone reassembles in order to participate in a closing team round that is worth twice as much as the individuals. Teachers from the competing teams tabulate scores and the winner is solely determined by which school scores the most points.

Now for the part you’ve all been waiting for: team statistics. The Team cumulatively scored 283 points across the four meets. November’s meet was by far the highest scoring one with a total of 97 points scored. The lowest scoring matchup was the January meet with only 42 points scored. The December and February meets had 94 and 52 points, respectively. Megan Scribner was the top scoring senior with 23 total points, Linnea Martin was the top scoring junior with 24 total points, and Tom Clinton was the top scoring sophomore with 21 total points.

Students who competed in at least one meet include seniors Scribner, Raab and Eric Smith; juniors Ally Knight, Max Bruchowski, Linnea Martin, Annika Rowland, Mike Gosselin and Mike Meads; sophomores Tom Clinton and Lauren Bilton; and freshmen Spencer Kubicki, Alex Linn and Becca Prentice.

You can follow Math Team on Twitter now! @mathletes_hhs