PRESS RELEASE
From left, Bryce Lee, Nolan Chung, Eugene So and Kevin Sin represented Hawaii at the national MathCounts competition.
The Hawaii State MathCounts team placed 11th, its best performance ever, out of 57 teams in the national MathCounts competition in Chicago earlier this summer. Hawaii students place 11th
at national MathCounts meetStar-Bulletin Staff
The team consisted of Nolan Chung, Bryce Lee and Kevin Sin of Iolani, and Eugene So of Punahou, coached by Anne Yoneshige of Iolani. Individually, So placed 15th out of 228 competitors.
Yoneshige said the best the team ever did before was 12th place two years ago. This is the team's third time at the nationals; the first time was in 1995, she added.
MathCounts is a national competition for 6th, 7th and 8th graders who try to solve difficult math problems in short amounts of time. In Hawaii, teams from nearly 60 schools took part in chapter competitions in February. Ten of those teams competed in the state contest in March, with the top individual scorers making up the state team that went to Chicago June 14.
"The Hawaii state team did a fantastic job. This is the highest rank for a Hawaii team since we have been involved in MathCounts for almost 20 years," said Rowena Blaisdell of Kamehameha Schools, a major local sponsor of the competition. Other major local sponsors are Aloha Airlines, Hawaiian Electric Company, and founding sponsor the Hawaii Society of Professional Engineers.
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