Students from Lincoln East, Southwest take top honors at UNL Math Day

Lincoln Southwest's Albert Zhou took the top individual award at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's 19th-annual Math Day Nov. 13. A team from Lincoln East took top honors in the Math Bowl team competition.

Zhou's win in a field of 1,343 students from 99 Nebraska high schools earned him an $8,000 Gallup Math Day scholarship to UNL.

The second- through fifth-place finishers each won $4,000 scholarships: 2, Ben Kotopka (Lincoln Pius X); 3, Richard Zhang (Lincoln East); 4, Alan Xu (Lincoln East); 5, Jeffmin Lin (Omaha Creighton Prep). The sixth- through 10th-place finishers each won $2,000 scholarships: 6, Daniel Zhou (Lincoln Southwest); 7, Will Scheideler (Lincoln East); 8, Paul Davey (Creighton Prep); 9, Nick Doty (Lincoln East); 10, Luke Keohane (Millard South).

Lincoln East's winning Math Bowl team included Jahan Claes, Will Scheideler and Alan Xu. Creighton Prep's second-place team included Paul Davey, Nick Davis, Mike Lebens and Jeffmin Lin.

In Math Bowl finals in other classes, a Mount Michael Benedictine team of Sang-won Bahng, Joshua Cox, Yongjoon Kim, Gunhee Park and Luke Weitkemper beat Seward (Nick Couch, Jessica Guy, Andrew Sorsen, Titus Tvrdy) to win Class B. In Class C, an Omaha Brownell-Talbot team of Chris Dessonville, Drew Heckman, Molly Kremen, Ian Suiter and Eric Tobin took first place over Archbishop Bergan (Thomas Fryklind, Kurtis Kammerer, Aaron Morris, Nate Schueth, Jim Wilmes). In Class D, Pope John XXIII's team (Nate Dierks, Jordan Engle, Dylan Heithoff, Angie Pelster and Jackie Seier) took first place over Heartland Homeschoolers (Matthew Porath, Josh Roth and Lauren Roth).

The purpose of Math Day is to promote the mathematical sciences and UNL. It consists of two individual and two team mathematics competitions, information about majors and departments, career information, and recreational mathematical activities.

All students start with a multiple-choice preliminary exam called PROBE I (Problems Requiring Original and Brilliant Effort). The top three females and males receive awards. The top 50 students move on to take an exam called PROBE II. The top 10 on PROBE II are awarded a total of $34,000 in four-year scholarships to UNL. All the PROBE I questions assume only two years of high school algebra and one year of geometry. The answers to PROBE II questions require the creativity and originality expected from only the very best students.

There are two team competitions. The first competition is determined by averaging the top scores from each school on PROBE I. The second competition, the Math Bowl, is a double-elimination tournament with trophies given to the top two teams in each class.

The top three female students in the PROBE 1 competition were: 1, Lauren Roth (Heartland Homeschoolers); 2, tie, Sara Frederick (Scottsbluff), Cara Nickolaus (Lincoln Northeast); 3, Maesen Churchill (Lincoln East). The top three male students were Davey, Zhou and Kotopka.

The top five teams in PROBE 1 by class were:

Class A: Lincoln East 86.2 (of 100 points possible), Creighton Prep 77.8, Lincoln Southwest 73.0, Westside 71.8, Lincoln Southeast 66.8.

Class B: Mount Michael Benedictine 70.25, Omaha Skutt 59.75, Norris 59.50, Plattsmouth 58.50, Omaha Duchesne 55.25.

Class C: Omaha Brownell-Talbot 66.0, Elmwood-Murdock 57.33, Archbishop Bergan 54.33, Wisner-Pilger 52.67, Grand Island Central Catholic 51.00.

Class D: Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran 50.0, College View Academy 49.33, Bertrand 49.0, Heartland Homeschoolers 48.67, Dorchester 43.33.