Academic decathlon studying hard for next year’s state tournament

By CELEST KRISKA and HALLEY PAUL, staff writers

The academic decathlon team preparing for its upcoming tournament.
The academic decathlon team preparing for its upcoming tournament. (Photo by Halley Paul)

The Academic Decathlon team is in preparation for a competition for state that will take place in Anchorage, Alaska from February 26 – 29, 2020.

The Academic Decathlon is led by Coaches Dawn Pomrening and Eli Holmes, with a team of seven participating students. There will hopefully be several more students, said coach Pomrening in an email. The participants on the team Branden Nollner, Tatiana Stern-Morgan, Chiara Demientieff, Alani Chase, Matthew Stanley, Jade Allain, and Hadley Andrew.

Each team requires three honor students with the average GPA of 3.75 to 4.0, three scholastic students with the average GPA of 3.0 to 3.75, and varsity students with the average GPA below 2.99.

The Academic Decathlon will make their way to Anchorage, Alaska for a state competition in February. Team of seven will compete against other teams. The team practices by talking through relevant information, doing numerous tests, best based on their own knowledge. Students do game like quizzes (like Jeopardy) and the events are scored by a set of impartial judges, said coach Holmes.

The most difficult part of training the students is “figuring out how to cut down the most important information,” said Eli Holmes. “This is his first year of running the Academic Decathlon with Dawn Pomrening.”