The math team has long owned the stereotype as the lowly nerds.  Mean Girls far from helped this, labeling the acting of joining such a prestigious group “social suicide.”

The mathletes of today far distance themselves from this phenomenon.  Regardless of their social standing though, they are some of the best analytical minds DHS has to offer.  An honorable mathlete is now a title of pride and a label of intellect.

Few non-mathletes know of the successes they have achieved at math meets.  Few even know when DHS hosts a math meet.  The time of anonymity is over, at least for the readers of this newspaper.  With major sports, including football, basketball, and baseball hogging the headlines of local newspapers, the DHS Math Team is usually lost in the mix, a true travesty considering they are one of the most successful  DHS teams.

Team One for the DHS Math Team consists of senior Matthew Jones, junior Thomas Hartman, junior Michael Zhang, sophomore Emily Chen, and their very own captain senior Ribhu Sengupta.  As captain, Sengupta has been referred to as the masked crusader of mathematics, the artist of arithmetic, and the connoisseur of calculus.  He is regarded as their fearless leader.  The team supervisor is Donald York who himself teaches various mathematical disciplines at DHS.

The math meet is formatted in rounds.  There are five individual performance rounds and one team round.  The rounds are divided by mathematical subject.  The rounds include arithmetic, algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2, and trigonometry. Of the five-member team, a total of three members can participate in each individual round, where each member answers three questions.  Each member also must participate in three rounds.

The individual rounds are followed by the team round, which also features a three-question spread. All five members are allowed to collaborate on each answer.

At no point during any meet is a calculator allowed to aid in reaching an answer.

Each individual member is given a score out of 18 points.  The questions are ordered by difficulty.  For the individual rounds, the first question is given a numerical value of one point.  The second is worth two points, and the third is worth three points.  The team round is scored slightly differently.  The first question of the team round is assessed a two point value.  The second question is given three points, and the third question is worth five points.  The score received on the team round does not affect any one individual’s score.

The math team has fared successfully to date.  Each meet is comprised of eight teams that compete against one another.

This year, the team has won all five meets it has participated in. Highlighting the successes is the perfect score earned by senior Matthew Jones, a rare feat to accomplish.

Captain Sengupta said, “We’ve had a good season so far.  We’ll be looking to carry this form into the playoffs.”  Entering the playoffs, the DHS Math Team hopes to continue its success.