UIL academics has success at first meet

The UIL academic team received numerous awards at the Hamshire Fannett meet on Jan. 13.

Alora Jones, News Editor
January 15, 2018

The UIL Academic Team competed at the Hamshire-Fannett meet on Saturday, Jan. 13. Many academic teams and individuals placed, which gave them the boost of confidence for success at the upcoming meets.

The Computer Science team took home the first place title. Sukhjot Singh placed first, Dajhaun Myles placed second, Nick Muggleston placed third, Derrick Martin placed fourth, Lovejot Singh placed fifth, and Tyler Comeaux placed sixth.

The speech team won first place, as well. Caroline Guayante placed won first and Ashlyn Ellis placed third in Prose. Dalton Teeler won first and Jadyn Stack placed second in Poetry. Adrienne Norris placed second in Informative Speaking and fifth in LD Debate. Chaz Hill placed third in Persuasive Speaking.

“I expected us to do well due to the incredibly hard work the Prose and Poetry readers put in leading up to the contest, however, I did not expect such a dominating performance they brought in,” Prose and Poetry coach Clark Reed said. “I especially did not expect that two newcomers (this was their first contest) to take first place in prose and second place in poetry. I was so impressed and proud of them.”

The Current Events team, which consisted of Nyah Patel, Bayleigh Swanton, Zach Casey, and Peyton Ellis, placed second.

“Preparing for Current Events is something that takes weeks to do,” Patel said. “You have to constantly be on top of your game and always be reading the news. As a team we practice every week and sometimes we have discussions about the current issues. We try to take a test at least once a week, so we know what material to be studying. We have a group message where we send nothing but articles and discuss all the things going on.”

The Literary Criticism team consisting of Sophie Boyd, Julia Iles, Elizabeth Johns, and Jackson Baeza placed second. Individually, Johns placed fifth and Baeza sixth.

All members of the Ready Writing team placed. Julia Iles won first place, Aman Tejani placed fourth, and Alora Jones placed sixth.

The Mathematics team along with the Number Sense team won first place. In Mathematics, Chandler Barr placed first, Nick Muggleston placed third, Tyler Miller placed fourth, and Dajhaun Myles placed sixth. In Number Sense, Barr placed first, Aidan Watson placed second, Lovejot Singh placed third, Sukhjot Singh placed fourth, and Muggleston placed sixth.

The Science team consisting of Chandler Barr, Tyler Miller, and Russell placed first. Barr placed first overall, and was first place in Chemistry, Biology, and Physics.

The academic team’s next competition will be on Jan. 27 in Nederland. The coaches and competitors plan on taking skills they acquired at this meet to improve for their upcoming meets.

“We are going to take the notes that the judges gave us and work them into the individual performances,” Reed said. “We will also continue to polish the performances as well as explore the pieces even further to deepen the performers understanding of their pieces to enhance their interpretations.”