After winning fourth at states last year, the LHS Math Team is looking forward to another great season.
Although extra math sounds uninviting to most students, the honor and pride after a successful meet makes it worth it.
“It’s good practice for math class, and it’s actually more fun than it seems, so it’s worth a little bit of extra work,” Junior Cailin Borovicka said.
It can make math class easier and help reinforce previously learned math skills. Being introduced to new things on the team can help with critical thinking in the future.
“I like that there’s challenging problems that I’ve never seen before,” Borovicka said. “It helps with problem solving skills, like if there’s a problem in math class that I don’t know how to do, I’m more prepared to try and figure it out now.”
The team is encouraging people to come in and check it out, even if they are unsure about joining.
“It can’t hurt to give it a try,” junior Katie Lacerda said. “I know that it sounds kind of nerdy, but if you and your friends join it could be fun. If you aren’t sure, you could always just try it for one meet and then if it’s really that bad, not come back. If you join with your friends, I don’t think that you’ll find it as bad as it seems.”
The team practices on Wednesdays in room 169 to work on problems that they might face in a typical meet.
“You pick which categories that you want, and then Mr. Wenger gives you review packets to work on,” Lacerda said. “The packets have example problems from previous meets, so you can practice your categories and get used to the types of problems that you would be seeing.”
With so many different activities to pick from at school, it can be hard to commit to some clubs. However, you can still be a part of math team, even with a busy schedule.
“Most of our members are involved with so many different things, so basically, I just give them a packet,” adviser Mr. Wenger said. “They just kind of work through those, when they have time. So even if they can’t make it to practices, they can still work on this on their own.”
With a few meets under their belt this year, the only direction they can go is up.
“We tend to get better as the year goes on, so I’m hoping the next meet will be better,” Wenger said. “Right now, we’re fourth in our division, and I think we’ll get stronger as the year goes on and have a good showing at states.”
Having joined her freshman year, Lacerda has gotten a lot of practice over the years and is also looking for improvements this season.
“I’d like to try to get more problems right per meet this year than I have in previous years,” Lacerda said. “I used to score pretty low, but this year, it’s looking a little easier to me.”
The team has been practicing hard and now, with a few meets under their belt, they’re ready to see what they can do at their upcoming meets.
“I want to win a couple of meets,” Wenger said. “They only give trophies for first or second, so it would be awesome to improve and bring home a trophy. I would also love to be in the top three at states. We’ll see what happens, but that would be great.”
