Academic Decathlon students attended their first competition of the year on Saturday, where they earned fifth place overall.
“The team has been preparing for the competition all school year,” head coach Tim Johannes said. “We have been practicing, training, and competing in class against each other. It was fun to compete against other teams. Many of the students have not competed before so it was a great learning experience for them. We also did really well. I am proud of the team for their efforts. We finished as a team in 5th place against some really good teams. Only Heritage beat us from Frisco ISD schools, which is quite an accomplishment. They were third at the state meet last year.”
While top finishes were achieved from several individuals, it was a team effort according to junior Tanisha Prakash.
“The competition went well,” Prakash said. “It was a good learning experience for everyone. I enjoyed the team aspect of it”
As a first year member, Prakash is grateful for the experiences Academic Decathlon competitions bring.
“The most rewarding part was the experience I got from it,” Prakash said. “This was my first year in Academic Decathlon (AcDec), so I’m glad my first time went well and learned how the AcDec competitions work. We have been preparing by taking tests every class, so I depended on my abilities on how I do on those tests.”
With a first place finish in Art, senior Luit Deka feels his hard work has paid off.
“I did good in some subjects and I have room for growth in others,” Deka said. “I got first in Art and that was really rewarding as I worked really hard for that subject. So yeah I’m glad my hard work paid off. I prioritized Art since I knew I could medal in it and the subject just seemed very interesting to me. I spent lots of hours into studying and took lots of notes and I’m glad it paid off in the end.”
While Deka is proud of his first place finish, he is still looking to improve in other sections for their next competition on Dec. 16.
“Personally, I really had to prioritize my time,” Deka said. “I knew I could medal in Art so I spent most of not all of my time studying for that rather than other subjects. As a result, though I did well in Art, my scores in other areas were not as good. So this meet was definitely a good benchmark for where I’m at and where I can improve”
Sophomore Zachary Moland found success on Saturday with a second place finish in Social Science, a third place finish in Music, and a six place finish in Art and Neuroscience.
“It was our first competition of the year and we haven’t really been able to go over all of the sections yet, so we had tests over like seven of the sections, and there’s 10 sections, but we haven’t gone over literature yet,” Moland said. “So we kind of struggled with that one because we hadn’t touched on at all. But other than that went pretty well.”
