The Ohio Academic Decathlon, or AcaDec, is sports for the brain. Led by Oakwood High School teacher Lori Morris, the team scored an Ohio record-breaking total score of 49,787.7 points.
“This team definitely followed in the footsteps of previous teams. They worked well collaboratively and made it a priority to work hard and achieve that goal,” said Morris. “And, this is only the third time since 1982 that someone’s gotten a perfect score in math.”
She’s referring to junior Connor Hart, who scored a perfect 1,000. He received a standing ovation for his performance. Competitors get 35 questions in math and 50 questions in nine other subject areas. The hardest part? They only get 30 minutes to take each test. This year’s overall theme was India.
“We have a fantastic team, with one of the highest scores for a school our size in the nation,” said Hart. “The program is really growing at our school. We have 29 students right now, and 56 have signed up to compete for next year’s team.”
Although figuring equations is easy for Hart, it doesn’t come that easily for others.
Even though senior Emmaline Bennett was the highest scoring member of the Oakwood team, she had to concentrate her studies on math.
“For me, math is the hardest category. But I studied hard, and got an 828 out of 1,000,” said Bennett. “But [AcaDec] is all encompassing, and I’ve learned so much information throughout these 4 years. Everything from the history of medieval Russia, to genetic engineering, to post-colonial art.
The Oakwood Team dominated team medals with a total of 78. Taking home medals in each of the 10 areas of competition: Hart, Clay Goertemiller and Lukas Drumheller. Other team members’ medal counts: Bennett, 8; Bryce Stammler, 9; Cynthia Hong, 9; Emma Dalrymple, 9; Matt Koch, 7; and Sam Carryer, 6. Three Oakwood team members swept the Golden Eagles awards, which are given to the highest-scoring students in each division: Bennett (Honors), Clay Goertemiller (Scholastic), Lukas Drumheller (Varsity). In addition, Dalrymple was featured in the Speech Showcase as part of the Awards Ceremony with her speech on the importance of “home.”
Also competing at the State Competition for Oakwood were 20 individual decathletes who brought home a total of 96 medals: Rey Arcenas, Sammi Auditore, Juliana Chen, Kaes Drumheller, Garrett Hart, Max Hollmeyer, Jack Johnston, John Jones, Andrew Koch, Julia Mullen, Jordan Neeley, Eric Otis, Alex Polete, Charlie Ross, Sam Sidhu, Garrett Spikes, Ryan Steggerda, John White, Alex Yungblut and Coco Zhang.
And now the Oakwood team is off to the 2016 USAD Nationals in Anchorage, Alaska, on April 28-30. Oakwood has earned national championships in 2012, 2013, 2104 and 2015. Last year the team achieved the third-highest score at Nationals, behind California and Texas.
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