Let's talk about the good news first. On November 6, the SHS Math Team was able to reel off its third consecutive victory dating back to the 96-97 season. The competition was held at Minuteman Tech., where, once again, Somerville defeated Burlington by a last-round victory. The final score was 108-101.
Paul McDonald ('99) led the team (as well as all the juniors in the competition) with a near- perfect score of 16. Ellen Wong ('98) led all seniors with a score of 14; freshman prodigy Sidd Jha also earned this score. Finishing third were David Kim and Jadda Fu (both '99), with 12 points. Also scoring were Phillipe Cheng ('98) and Alex Wong (99), each with 6; Ellen Diep ('98) with 4; and John Hennessey ('00) with 2.
Unfortunately there was also some bad news. On December 4, the Somerville team's win streak was broken as they were beaten while on Burlington's home turf. Despite heading into the competition without some of their top mathematicians, they were nonetheless able to salvage a third-place finish. After the first two rounds, Burlington was beating Somerville by only two points. Then came the third round, and from that point a victory was hopeless. After the third round, Burlington was far ahead of Somerville, by a score of 48-32.
Heading into the final round, Somerville was ahead of Stoneham by two points, and it looked as though we might have a second place. Sadly, Somerville scored a season-low score of three points, allowing Stoneham to slip into the second place position. The score of the top three finishers (Burlington, Stoneham and Somerville) was 85-59-55.
Individually, though, the team members performed well. McDonald and Kim walked away with 10 points apiece; Xuan Luu ('98) scored 8; Sidd Jha again led all freshmen with 8. The 108 points scored by Somerville at the Minuteman meet was eighth best in the state, and moved the team into IOth in Massachusetts. Hopefully, the team will do better in their next competition.