It has been another busy year for the Montclair High School Math League and the team’s results have been great. Throughout the year, there were many math competitions involving timed problem-solving and beginning in October, students sat for five monthly NJ Math League contests. These thirty minute contests each containing six problems are not your typical math textbook problems, but rather “challenges” requiring outside of the box thinking. Examples are:
- Find all three ordered triples (a, b, c) with 0<a≤b≤c where 1/a+1/b+1/c=1?
- A distribution consists of the integers from 1 through 100, inclusive, such that the frequency of each integer n is 2^(n-1). What is the median of this distribution?
In this contest, Montclair High School finished first in Essex County and marked the 18th consecutive year that Montclair High School finished in the top ten of New Jersey participating high schools.
In early May, Montclair High School competed in the Second Annual Monmouth University Math Contest. Over 20 MHS students participated, with the team finishing first in this contest. The top score belonged to Xavier Adebona, who also finished third overall in the individual rankings. The other individuals representing the team score were Benjamin Tillis, Anya Amin, Collin Brooks, Frederick Chitwood, and Oliver Brackenbury.
The last event, the Essex County Math League competition, was recently held at Caldwell University. Twelve Essex County high schools competed in Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Advanced Mathematics, Statistics, and Calculus.
First place Team Calculus (second consecutive year MHS finished first):
Sol Demefack, Rafael Baird, Danica Stout (finished second place individual), Harry Brackenbury, Phelan Haberle
Second Place Team Algebra 2:
Isaac Chaffin, Oliver Brackenbury (tied for second place individual), Magnus Baden-Campbell (tied for second place individual), Evie Brackenbury, Anya Amin
Third Place Team Advanced Math (TrigCalc H):
Caleb Stahl, Benjamin Tillis, Bailey Ruff, Quinn Fechner, Luke Dreyfuss
Third Place Team Statistics:
Charlotte King (Top 3 finisher), Oz Axelrod, Abraham Kirschner, Xavier Adebona, Ilan Baird
Third Place Team Geometry (Buzz Aldrin Middle School)
Amelia Catanach (Top 3 individual), Ina Prodan, Ben Cohen-Vigder, Olivia Ngo, and Silas Hart
Team Algebra 1:
Dhiren Perle (Top 3 individual), Nicholas Anderson, Calvin Shiao, Patric Brodock, and Diya Rai
Mr. Dana Rubin, MHS math teacher and advisor to the MHS Math League, is always amazed by the students’ ability to compete against the other schools and proud of their accomplishments.
As Rubin states, “I am just the coach and these are the players that are representing the Montclair Public School District. These students embody tenacity, resilience, grace under pressure and a true joy of mathematics. I am very fortunate that we have such a strong turn out for these math competitions since our students balance their rigorous academic schedules with sports and other activities. Considering all this, they still manage to carve out some time for extracurricular math. So incredible!”