Lemont's Mathletes Squad Places 13th at 2016 ICTM State Finals

LEMONT, IL — Thanks to top-20 finishes in eight of 12 categories, Lemont High School’s Mathletes team placed 13th in the team standings at the 2016 Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) Division 3AA State Finals, which were contested on May 7 on the campus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Led by coaches Angela Marshall, Dardrae Breig, Abbey Scupin and Ken Suslek, Lemont now has finished among the top 20 teams in its division nine times in 10 years, including 11th-place finishes in 2007 and 2013. Lemont also won its fourth straight South Suburban Conference-Blue Division title - its fifth overall - earlier this season.

The team’s best performance in state finals competition was an 8th-place finish from the Freshman/Sophomore Relay Team, which included sophomores Anna Ford and Alex Paulius and freshmen Akash Gandhi and Anna Goranski. Lemont received 10th-place finishes from its Geometry Written Team and Junior/Senior Relay Team.

Sophomore Josh Reitz was Lemont’s top individual performer in state finals competition, finishing 25th of more than 150 competitors in the Geometry event. Gandhi (37th - Algebra I), senior Matt Filar (45th - Pre-Calculus) and junior Jimmy Sliwa (52nd - Algebra II) were Lemont’s best performers in the other individual events.

Lemont earned a berth to the ICTM State Finals by winning the Joliet area regional competition on February 27 at Joliet Junior College. Lemont placed among the top three in eight of 10 regional events, which included five first-place finishes and two runner-up placements. Its team victory earned an automatic qualification to the ICTM Division 3AA State Finals.

Junior Natasha Joseph was the lone individual regional medalist for Lemont, as she finished first in the Algebra II category. She teamed with Sliwa and juniors Mira Antonopoulos, Faraz Longi, Shannon O’Donnell and Chris Paulius to capture the Algebra II Written Team competition.

Reitz and sophomores Ashley Belsan, Sean Haughey, Laura Hunter, Jana Lacanlale and Arjun Reddigari were victorious in the Geometry Written Team competition, while Gandhi, Goranski and freshmen Lucy Conway, Kirsten Kash, Melanie LeBeck and Nathan Pawlak triumphed in the Algebra I Written Team category.

Several students were part of multiple first-place squads at the regional. Conway, Goranski, Haughey, Kash, Lacanlale, LeBeck and Reddigari teamed with Ford to finish first in the Freshman/Sophomore 8-Person Team competition.

Lemont’s final first-place finish came from Filar and senior Anthony Dominic in the Junior/Senior 2-Person Team category.

Hunter and Reddigari finished as the runner-up in the Freshman/Sophomore 2-Person Team competition, while Filar joined seniors Spenser Bailey, Misbah Chagpar, Nancy Lin, Sarah O’Donnell and Paul Sikora on the Pre-Calculus Written Team that finished second.

In other individual competitions, Chagpar (Pre-Calculus), Reddigari (Geometry) and Gandhi and Kash (Algebra I) all finished third within their respective categories.