Academic Decathlon: Onward to State

The most important meet for a club is not Nationals, contrary to popular belief. Instead it is State, the competition right before that determines the rest of the year for competitors.

Now that MCHS’s Academic Decathlon team conquered Regionals, what’s left is to double the hard work for State. One meeting a week has turned into two: WINGSup and Thursdays after school. “It’s a lot of fact-based information,” said Sofia Ahari (‘26). “But that can be really hard to balance when you’ve got other things to memorize and other school work to do.”

This competition will be different from the first. According to the schedule provided by Miss Yarrow, it will take place over two days, March 5th and 6th, with the Social Science test and Speeches and Interviews on the first. 

The excitement for State is electrifying. Decathletes have been trying their best, and not unnoticed. “I feel like we’ve all been putting in a lot of work,” said Ahari. “It’s reflected in our scores, and also in just the excitement we have going to state.”

But that is not all that is different. Now, all three divisions (Honors, Scholastic, and Varsity) have a main team with different alternates depending on their scores at Regionals. Alternates that are separate from the main team will not be participating in Speech and Interview, but they will have their essays scored just the same as their counterparts.

Students have their hopes up for the meet, believing that the Riverhawks may just go to Nationals in California this year. “It’s something that we’ve done before,” said Ahari. “So there’s this feeling of ‘We can do it again.’ I think that’s driving us all, so I feel like we have a chance.”