The Bellefontaine Middle School Mathcounts team wrapped up its season Saturday, Feb. 25, competing in the Dayton Regional Mathcounts event at Wright State University.
For the first time in three years, Mathcounts members participated in person after restrictions from the pandemic were lifted.
The Bellefontaine team consisted of mathletes: seventh-graders Caden Yoder, Ta’kyis Savage, Brody Miranda and Isabella Welch.
Bellefontaine’s individual participant was: sixth-grader Maxton Miranda.
Other Bellefontaine club members include: Sixth-graders Rylee Crabtree and Antonio Avalos Mendez.
Caden led the Chiefs. He placed 21st out of 81 students.
The competition started with the Sprint Round. This round consists of 30 questions that need to be completed in 40 minutes without a calculator.
After a small break, students competed in the Target Round. This round consists of eight problems where you’re given 6 minutes to complete sets of two questions. A calculator is permitted.
The final part of the competition was the Team Round. A group of four students were tasked with completing 10 problems in 20 minutes. A calculator is permitted.
BMS competed against the following middle schools: Coldwater, Miami Valley, Incarnation, Ankeney, Dayton Regional STEM School, Watts, Lima Shawnee, Tipp City, Coy, Franklin Monroe, and Magsig.
Lawrence Miller has coached the BMS Mathcounts team the last four years.
“My favorite part of coaching Mathcounts is seeing how much math the mathletes retain as the year progresses,” Miller said. “You can tell that students are grasping this information and can apply that information into more complicated questions.
“Bellefontaine Middle School is the only school in the tri-county area that participates in Mathcounts. My goal is to get Mathcounts out in the public so that more local schools can start this program since math is such a fundamental pillar in STEM education.”
Mathcounts is an after school club that meets once a week for roughly an hour. Topics in the competition range from algebra, geometry, probability, number theory, and miscellaneous general math.
Mathcounts is only available for sixth- through eighth-graders. The club will start up next season after Labor Day.
