For years, the Mu Alpha Theta club has hosted their annual Math Bowl in which teams of students compete against each other to take the trophy. In fact, this tradition has been going on for so long, that PPCHS teacher Mr. Perez was a participant in it when he was a student back in 2013.
This year, students gathered in Mrs. Guzman’s room in the math wing of the U building to participate, where pizza and drinks were also served for free to the participants, and cost money for spectators. Some students, such as PPCHS junior, Colin, have hopes to use the competition as a way to engage in the club and even prepare for future tests. “Honestly I wanted to engage in Mu Alpha Theta more,” he said before the start of the tournament. “But my biggest thing that I want to do with this, it’s that I heard that this is a good review for SAT questions, and I thought that could be interesting.”
Other students like sophomore Alejandro Agudelo, had big aspirations for the event. “[If we win,] we get our name engraved on the trophy. My team and I, we hope to win.” However, matching his enthusiasm, his teammate responded to him: “No, we will win!”
Some students were there out of a mere necessity for Mu Alpha Theta hours. “I signed up because I needed hours to stay in [the club],” explained Sunny Ostendorf, sophomore. When asked if he thought he and his team, dubbed “Shankerr”, would win, he replied: “Not a chance.”
The actual event consisted of three rounds of Kahoot duels between the eight teams, crudely named “Leviathan,” “The Three Mathkateers”, “Shankerr”, “Soh Cah Tuah”, “Kiwi”, “DP Oil”, “El Diablo”, and “The Gamblers”. The initial preliminary rounds consisted of wins for Leviathan, DP Oil, Kiwi, and The Gamblers, although most had very close scores. The second round upped the stakes as DP Oil and Leviathan knocked out their respective opponents, readying to face one another in the finals.
By the time the finals rolled around, it was already about 3:30 PM, and there were very few people still waiting. For the final showdown, which consisted of ten questions, DP Oil maintained a significant lead over The Gamblers, beating them by well over double their points.
Although initially refusing to comment, the strangely named winning team spoke on their victory after the competition. Initially, they didn’t expect to win, but went in thinking there was a chance, remarked one of their members, Alexander Moyano. “The first half was pretty medium, medium difficulty, I’d say, but the second half was pretty hard.” He, specifically, was projected to win by several other competitors, who said he was the reason his team would emerge victorious.
The winning team’s names will be engraved on the trophy, and the Math Bowl will continue its legacy next year as one of the longest-running Charter club traditions.
