St. Croix students compete at Mathcounts

ST. CROIX - More than 100 students competed Thursday in the 2011 St. Croix District Mathcounts Competition.

St. Croix Country Day School came out the victor thanks to strong performances in the individual rounds.

In addition to the four-member team from Country Day, six other students from three schools also will compete in the territorial competition March 17 to fill the four seats on the Virgin Islands Mathcounts team that will travel to Washington, D.C., for the national competition.

The competition among middle school mathletes tests the students' problem-solving skills in a variety of ways - the common denominator being speed.

Accuracy helps, too - though at times, the two are not compatible.

Divided among 17 tables in the Good Hope School gym, students from 11 schools huddled over packets of paper - some nibbling on erasers, others gnawing on fingernails - as they waded through heaps of mathematical quandaries.

Country Day eighth-grader Osaze Newton took the top score in the individual rounds - the Sprint and Target rounds - by narrowly edging out his seventh-grade Country Day teammate, Julian DiPersio.

"My favorite thing is, probably, that there's a way to show off math skills, because there's not a lot of ways to show off math skills," Osaze said.

He said he was much more confident in his second year competing.

Osaze was a finalist in the Countdown Round - a one-on-one speed competition set up like a bracketed tournament - but he lost out to Elena Christian eighth-grader Raheem Knight, who was one of the top four in the territory last year and who recently placed second in the St. Croix District Spelling Bee.

Raheem, 13, said he thrives on competition and was excited to come in first in the speed-based competition, which began with a pool of the top 12 scoring students in the individual round.

"I'm feeling good right now," Raheem said. "Last year I placed third. This year I placed first. This is my last year, so I feel good about achieving that."

The key, Raheem said, is simple: "Make sure your calculations are correct."

Country Day won the territorial competition last year and showed up strong in the district competition once again, with six of the 10 students moving on to compete in the territorial competition coming from that school.

The four-member Country Day team - Osaze, Julian, Kari Currence and Francesca Pastore - will compete against their St. Thomas-St. John counterparts on March 17 to decide which school will be named territorial champion. The winning team's coach also will go on to coach the Virgin Islands team that will compete May 5-8 in Washington, D.C.

Country Day coach Rachel Newman, who was the territorial coach last year, said she was thrilled at how many of her students qualified to compete in the territorial Mathcounts. To prepare, she and her students meet regularly to practice and discuss common equations and problem-solving methods.

"We meet twice a week for about an hour using old competition rounds from previous years, and they usually explain the answers to each other," she said.

The three public schools also placed well Thursday, with three students from Arthur Richards Junior High and two from Elena Christian Junior High placing in the top 12.

- Contact Daniel Shea at 774-8772 ext. 457 or e-mail dshea@dailynews.vi.

Winning teams:

1. St. Croix Country Day School

2. Good Hope School

3. Arthur Richards Junior High

4. Elena Christian Junior High

5. John Woodson Junior High

6. Church of God (Holiness)

Top 10 advancing to territorial competition:

Team: St. Croix Country Day School

Team Members: Osaze Newton, Julian DiPersio, Kari Currence and Francesca Pastore.

Coach: Rachel Newman

Additional competitors:

Raheem Knight, Elena Christian Junior High

Ethan Dean, St. Croix Country Day School

Acassia Ferguson, Arthur Richards Junior High

Karlina Gonzalez, Good Hope School

Julysah Willock, Elena Christian Junior High

Anayah Ferris, St. Croix Country Day School

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