Academic decathletes heading to state

NEDERLAND - The Academic Decathlon (AcaDec) team will be advancing to the State competition in San Antonio, Texas after placing second overall in the 4A Division at the regional competition, which was held at Manvel High School in Manvel, Texas, on January 29-30. The state competition will be February 25-28. The Team also placed second overall in the portion of the competition called Super Quiz. Super Quiz is divided into a written test and a relay, in which students answer questions in front of an audience.

The Acadec team is divided into the categories of honor, scholastic and varsity, and a team member’s category is determined by their GPA. In the honors category, Elizabeth Margolis earned a bronze medal in music and a bronze medal in language and literature. In the scholastic category, Eric Gobel earned a silver medal in interview, a silver medal in economics, and a bronze medal in language and literature. Colin Mai earned a bronze medal in essay, a bronze medal in music, a bronze medal in Super Quiz, and was also the 4^th highest scorer overall in the scholastic category. In the varsity category, Brandi Parfait earned a bronze medal in economics, a bronze medal in language and literature, and was also the 5^th highest scorer overall in the varsity category. Margolis, Mai and Parfait also each earned a gold medal for being the highest scoring member of the Nederland High School team in their respective categories.

“Academic Decathlon is a fun but challenging activity,” Rodriguez said.

The team is made up of returning members Gobel, Federico Rodriguez and Chloe Smith, seniors, and new members Mai and Benjamin Lane, seniors, and Margolis, Parfait and Molly Porter, juniors. The team coaches are Peggy Villareal and Kelly Stinnette.

The team departed from school on the morning of Friday, January 29 at 9:00 and arrived in Manvel around lunchtime. They competed in essay, interview and speech that day and stayed overnight at a Best Western Inn and Suites down the road from the school.

“The speech and interview competitions really prepare you for the real world,” Lane said.

The AcaDec team competed in math, music, economics and science, art, language and literature, written Super Quiz and Super Quiz relay the next day. They left Manvel High School following the awards ceremony that evening, and arrived home at 11:00 that night.

 “I’m really happy and proud of what the team did at competition,” Gobel said. “We’ll hopefully get another chance to further prove ourselves at state.”