According to Dora Miura, a teacher of Saipan Southern High School and the program coordinator, this was the first time that a CNMI team joined a national math competition like mathleague.org. “In our first competition we did well, and the kids had a great time,” she said.
Miura said six students — two from SSHS three from Marianas Baptist Academy and one from Calvary Christian Academy — comprised the CNMI team. They competed against mostly high school students from different states.
According to Miura the mathleague.org League Championship is by invitation only and there are certain qualifications before anyone can join the competition, such as winning the state championship and scoring a certain grade on a given math test. “It is a competition that is not open to anyone,” she added.
There are five different categories in the competition: sprint round, target round and relay round are all individual competitions while power question and team test are group competitions.
Eighth grader Kevin Hwang of CCA placed second during the target round and first in the sprint round while SSHS freshman Hye Young Oh placed fourth in the target round.
“I was nervous, it was really hard. There were a lot of stuff that we covered but I didn’t really understand,” said Hye Young Oh. “I didn’t really expect to win in the individual round,” she added.
Aside from Hwang and Oh, the other team members were Minchong Kang, also from SSHS, Hanbert Jeong, Hanatsu Omori and Han Byol Yu all from MBA.
According to Oh, they started training and studying since December with their coach Manny P. Borja, a math teacher of Mt. Carmel School.
This was the 12th year that mathleague.org hosted a league championship.
