Academic Empire: Hendricken wins event for 5th year

Kelcy Dolan
Posted 3/17/15

“It’s all because of our lucky socks,” Hendricken junior Michael Moren said Sunday night after learning the school had won the Rhode Island Academic Decathlon for the fifth consecutive year. …

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Academic Empire: Hendricken wins event for 5th year

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“It’s all because of our lucky socks,” Hendricken junior Michael Moren said Sunday night after learning the school had won the Rhode Island Academic Decathlon for the fifth consecutive year.

Sister Carol Anne Murray, the Hendricken Coach, said that, as tradition, she bought all the team members dress socks to match their suits and handed them out the practice before the competition. Every time Hendricken got a question right or did well the team would all say, “It’s the socks!”

This year Hendricken had a completely new team filled with all juniors, a first for Murray. She said that the team bonded quickly and have had each other’s backs the whole time.

“I knew they had the potential to win, but it was very competitive this year. East Greenwich was on our heels the whole time,” Murray said.

Hendricken team members said they didn’t have high hopes coming into the competition but had high standards they had to live up to. During the award ceremony, when individual medals were being given out, it became clear Hendricken dominated the competition.

By the end of the ceremony, almost all of the team wore numerous bronze, silver and gold medals, clinking as they went up to accept another medal.

Geoffrey Boyer asked if the team could wear the medals the next day to school or if it would break dress code for having “too much bling.”

There almost wasn’t a winner on Sunday though.

The essay portion of the competition was completed online through the National Academic Decathlon website. In the morning volunteers found that the website was down. Executive Director Sue Melaragno quickly got to work trying to contact the offices in California.

When the website was restored later in the afternoon she rallied volunteers to judge the essays before the end of the day so the students could know where each team stood.

During the award ceremony Melaragno was recognized for all her hard work and her dedication the last seven years as executive director. She had announced to the board earlier in the year that this would be her last year with the decathlon.

While the scores were being calculated all 14 teams participated in the Super Quiz Relay.

Whereas the other events are done individually, for the Super Quiz every team takes three students from each division – Varsity, Scholastic and Honors – to compete head to head with the other schools in front of other schools, volunteers and members of the public.

The students would hold up their answers for all to see and the crowd would cheer and clap when the team they were rooting for got an answer correct.

Although the Super Quiz does not factor into the final scores it serves as a public display of every teams’ hard work and “bragging rights.”

Hendricken also won the Super Quiz.

For individual medals Pilgrim had one winner, Michael Robinson who won a bronze medal in Interview.

Warwick Veterans placed sixth in the competition. Trent Mochel won bronze in Economics, bronze in Essay and a silver medal in Interview. Tram Nguyen won silver in Essay and was the top scoring member on the Vets team. Gabriel Shaker won gold in Speech as well as a gold medal for Interview with a perfect score of 1,000 points.

Many members of the Hendricken team won more than one medal.

Riley Chabot won gold in Social Science, Art and Music. He received silver medals for Language & Literature, Science and Economics. He also came in second for the competition overall with 7,848.3 points.

Miles Temel, the overall winner of the decathlon with 7,925.1 points also received a silver medal in Social Science, Music, Art, Mathematics and gold in Economics and Interview.

Aidan Kendra won gold in Social Science, Language & Literature, Music, Essay and Science. He also won silver in Art and Economics as well as bronze in Mathematics. He was the top scorer for the Scholastic division.

Geoffrey Boyer won silver in Social Science, Music, Science, Gold in Mathematics, gold in Economics, and was second overall for the Scholastic Division.

Nathan Tomasso won bronze in Social Science and Science as well as silver in Language & Literature,

Mason Cocroft won gold in Social science, silver in Language & Literature, bronze in Music, Art, Mathematics, and Economics. He was the second top scorer for the Varisty students.

Nicholas Bassi won bronze in Social Science, silver in Language & Literature, Music, Art, Economics, and was the third runner-up for Varsity division.

Michael Moren won gold in Language & Literature, Music, Science, Economics. He received silver in Mathematics and Essay. He also got won bronze in Art. For the Varsity division Moren was the top scorer.

As state winners, Hendricken will travel to the national competition in Garden Grove, California, April 16 to 18. Murray said the team would start practicing immediately.

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