It’s on to state for the Redhawks Academic Decathlon team after finishing in 5th place in the regional competition at Hebron High School in Carrollton on Saturday. 

Head coach Tim Johannes was focused on polishing and refining skills that were built up throughout the year. 

“Going into the meet, we were focusing heavily on making sure their speeches were well polished and their interview skills were ready to go,” Johannes said. “We also locked in on the subjects that were being tested during the event.” 

For senior Riley Cleaves, although she did well on certain aspects, she is more focused on scoring more points on subjects that were almost there. 

“At regionals I did really well with my speeches, scoring a perfect 1000,” Cleaves said. “As for areas I am trying to improve upon, I placed top 10 in every event so I am just focusing on the events that were near medalling such as Economics when choosing what I am actually going to work on since I’m pretty average all around and just need some more stand-out scores.”

Qualifying for state was expected but still exciting as ever for Johannes.

“It was exciting,” Johannes said. “I think we kind of knew after the results of our regional competition, but we didn’t really know for sure where we were gonna go until Sunday, so we had to kind of wait a whole day to find out where we went and what place we were in going into it.”

Cleaves is one of the seniors on the team, so working hard to the best of her abilities as well as making memories is a priority going into her final state meet. 

“My favorite memories from AcDec so far have been any moment where my team has collaborated in class,” Cleaves said. “I love the fact that everyone has started getting to know each other better and started to connect. For a more specific moment, my parents surprised me by showing up to the Region award ceremony where I managed to get a 1000 on my speeches. Both them coming and me performing so well were both big surprises to me that made me happy.”