While traditional teams can sometimes get lots of attention during the school year by attracting fans, Math Team is one of the accomplished teams that doesn’t get enough credit. The team has established a culture of sustained success over the past few decades in which they have racked up wins and trophies. The team has consistently made it to the state tournament, and just last year placed second as a team in the entire competition. 

The competitions include both a team and individual events. For each round, competitors try to answer four questions in a 12 minute period. The winner is whoever has the most correct answers in the shortest amount of time. The St. Paul Academy Math Team has excelled in this format, using collaboration between teammates. While joining a team that has had so much success may seem difficult, for junior Maxanne Millerhaller it was instead intriguing. “It’s a little out of my comfort zone but it’s something that I’ve been interested in doing for a while, and I felt like this was a good year to start,” she said.

Millerhaller has now begun focusing on establishing herself as a contributing member on the team. She said, “Since it’s my first year, I’m working on trying to prove myself right now.”

To do this, Millerhaller attended her first competition this past week at the Academy of Holy Angels. “I was nervous because it was my first time going, and I didn’t want to do bad and I was scared that I would get zero points which would be embarrassing,” she explained. 

Despite her fears, Millerhaller was content with the results, “I did two individual competitions, and I felt really good about my scores. I wasn’t really expecting to win, so when I saw that I did okay I was really happy. […] I think I was a little nervous that the team wouldn’t all of a sudden accept a new junior member but all of the people on the team have been really nice to me.”

Junior Alek Radsan, who has been on the team for three years, said, “It’s great to see people try something new and step out of their comfort zones to join the team, and I think that anyone who is interested should definitely join.”

As for joining the math team, Millerhaller thinks that more students should give it a chance.  “You might just learn something about yourself that you didn’t know before.” she said.