Pius X Academic Decathlon Team Wins Regional, Earns State Competition Bid
As last year’s State Academic Decathlon Champion, Pius X dominated the recent regional competition, placing first and earning a return trip to state. The Pius X academic decathletes were awarded a total of 27 gold, 19 silver, and 10 bronze medals (in the regular and alternate divisions) at the regional event held Sat., Jan. 17th. Additionally, each of the six members of Pius X’s first place team will receive a college scholarship.
Posting the highest score in the entire state, Pius X beat Mt. Michael by a single percentage point. The schools competing against Pius X in the large school portion of the regional competition included Lincoln Northeast, Bellevue East, Omaha Benson, Omaha Bryan, Omaha Central, and Omaha South. The state competition will be held at the University of Nebraska – Omaha on Feb. 20th and 21st, where Pius X will compete against Creighton Prep, Daniel Gross, Omaha Burke, Omaha Central, Omaha North, and Seward for a chance to return to the National Academic Decathlon Competition.
The regional Academic Decathlon event was split into two sections. The first part included 30 minute exams in six subject areas: art history, music, science, economics, language/literature, and math. The second part was a super quiz competition focused on social science. Each high school enters a team of 12 students with four students (2 scored and 2 alternates) in three divisions: honors, scholastic, and varsity.
Pius X students Philip Hanigan and Liam Kruse dominated the Honors division of the competition, taking home the gold and silver awards in all six subjects. Hanigan took four gold medals for music, science, economics and math. He also received the silver medal for art history and language/literature. Kruse took the other two gold medals for art history and language/literature, and the four other silver medals for music, science, economics and math.
Other medalists included:
Anna Tetherow (Scholastic): silver – science, language/literature, math; and bronze – art history, music.
Henry Jaros (Scholastic): gold – art history; and silver – music, economics.
Noah Schimenti (Varsity): gold – art history, music, economics.
Freddie Barie (Varsity): silver – art history; and bronze – music, math.
Catherine Krueger (alternate Honors): gold – art history, music, economics, language/literature, math; and silver – science.
Madeline May (alternate Honors): silver – music, language/literature; and bronze – math.
Jacob Schreiber (alternate Scholastic): gold – music, science, economics, math; and silver – art history.
Kathryn Noel (alternate Scholastic): gold – art history, language/literature; silver – music, science, economics; and bronze – math.
Esther Brown (alternate Varsity): gold – music, economics, math; and silver – art history.
Alyssa Jensen (alternate Varsity): gold – science, language/literature; and bronze – art history, science, economics, math.
The Super Quiz part of the competition had three rounds (Honors, Scholastic and Varsity) with students competing in pairs. Pius X received the gold scoring 5,400 out of a possible 6,000 points. The Honors division answered all 10 questions correctly, Scholastic competitors correctly answered nine out of 10, and the Varsity division answered eight out of 10 questions correctly.
The Academic Decathlon is coached by Ann Kotopka, Mary Jo Kopf, Shiela Sievert, Margaret Kaiser-Woodward, and Father Steve Mills.
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Picture: The Pius X Academic Decathlon secured a return bid to the state competition with their first place finish at regionals, posting a score of 5,400 out of a possible 6,000 points.
