Winchester Math Team Wins Regional Title

For the past three years, Tony Dong has been a member of the Math Team. He, along with senior Jeff Chen and juniors Alex McDonough and Julia Page, have all been on the team since its inception during the 2008-2009 season.

Before Dong, Chen, McDonough and Page, along with their faculty adviser, Amy Donovan, started the team, it had been nearly a decade since the school fielded a math team.

So when the Sachems defeated Choate Rosemary High School from Connecticut, a team that has won the New England Regionals for the last 15 years, by one point, 92-91, it was something that caught the Winchester team by surprise.

“Going into New England we new there would be a lot of competition,” said sophomore George Zhang, who recorded a perfect score at regionals. “I’m definitely surprised. We worked hard and we got it.”

Zhang, along with freshman Amelia Paine, were the only two underclassmen on the team.

Over the last three years, Winchester has seen its share of success in these tournaments. In its first season, Winchester placed second in the states and the regionals. The following year, the Sachems placed third in both tournaments, always finishing behind Choate at regionals.

Now, after this season, Winchester holds both the state and regional trophies.

“It’s an awesome feeling,” said Dong, the team’s captain. “I didn’t think we had a chance. Two years ago we had a really strong group of seniors that carried the team, but we still lost by 20 points [to Choate]. I didn’t think we had a chance, it was pretty surprising when we won.”

Being one of the scorers, Donovan knew the outcome before the announcement came, but as the final standings were announced, the Winchester team waited in anticipation of the final results.

“We knew we had a really good meet,” McDonough said. “But we didn’t go in expecting to win. We knew we had a one-point lead and one mistake could be the difference.”

Even though Winchester has been close to winning the regional title over the last few years, junior Julia Page, was not disheartened by the team’s close calls.

“We knew Choate always won, so it was never really that disappointing,” Page said. “But to hear we won was pretty exciting, I didn’t think we did it.”

But the win is something the Winchester math team won’t soon forget.

“We really weren’t expecting it,” Chen said. “We really wanted to get first, last year we finished third and we knew we improved our score this year. But after the team round I thought we got second. In the end it was real exhilarating. We were playing the final countdown. First they announced the fifth place team, then the fourth; there was so much tension. When we heard Choate got second, it felt amazing.”