By Summer-Sky Binns
The math team was able to place third out of the 20 competing districts in the New England Regionals- a feat for any small school like Rocky Hill.
In addition, juniors Marvin Odobashi and Shaswat Ganisshan ranked third and fifth place, respectively, out of the entire league.
“As with any competition, there is always the fear of messing up very badly and costing your team points,” said Obobashi, who has been an avid math team member since his freshman year and was more afraid about not supporting his team than the Covid-19 guidelines.
For this year’s competition, the Math Team had to adapt, like many other competing sports, to altered ways of playing–they were still broken into an A and B group but had to compete online rather than at a host school.
“As the season progressed, the team as a whole seemed to get a lot more confident and a lot more committed to the competition, which meant that the fears eventually shrunk significantly,” said Odobashi.
In a typical season, the two groups would travel to a hosting school for their separate competition. At the hosting school, they would compete and await their scores and rankings by the end of the match.
In addition, at the end of the season of a typical year, the winning teams would meet together for further competition, but this had to be cut from the season as a result of the current state of things.
Obobashi said his favorite thing about being on the team is its sense of community.
“Everyone has at least some interest in math, which makes it pretty easy for people to connect and make new friends,” Odobashi said.
“My hopes were to do better this season than last season, individually, as well as collectively as a team. On both counts, my hopes were accomplished. I personally did better than last season, which I was very glad about.”
However, Odobashi’s excitement for the team’s success does not come from just his accomplishments.
Odobashi said, this season he grew to become more and more confident and proud of the team as a result of their encouragement, teamwork, and sportsmanship.
“On a meet somewhere in the middle of or late into the season, everyone did very well across the board, and I could feel the excitement building up within the team to potentially place good by the end of the season.”
“Of course, the competition is an interesting part of it too,” he said, “but Math Team is just a great way to bond with friends through a shared interest.”
Obodashi was not the only person on the team to notice the growing bonds between them. Mr. Czuchta, the teacher leading the math team this past season, noted that the team did not let the physical boundaries stop them from bonding, “[they were] sharpening each other’s skills… laugh[ing] during the process… almost like we’re back in the classroom.”
Czuchta continued to commend how proud of the team he was and felt that even though he was the assigned teacher, it was the students who led and motivated the team. Even with all of the unexpected circumstances, “It worked out very well. The students themselves are really the highlight of the math team.”
