On Feb. 5, the U-High math team competed in the fourth North Suburban Math League meet held at Lab. U-High placed third out of four teams at the U-High-specific meet but sixth out of 55 teams in the fourth NSML meet overall. 

Ninth grader Bella Li, junior Tinson Xu and senior Victor Chen all received perfect scores in their individual contests. Other highlights include seniors Sophie Li and Mulan Wu, who scored a 46 out of 50, their best score this season in the orals competition, where competitors present their solutions to problems in front of a panel of judges. 

Three other teams participated in the meet: Oak Park, Walter Payton and Whitney Young. For the U-High-specific meet, the freshman team was first, the sophomore team was third, the junior team was second and the senior team was third. Out of the 55 teams, however, the freshmen team was tied for first, sophomore team was sixth, junior team was fifth and senior team was tied for thirteenth.

Victor, a senior and captain, feels good about the team’s performance, particularly in the candy bar round, a competition where the entire team answers 20 regular questions and five extra tiebreaker questions in 20 minutes, with the winner getting a bag of candy.

“We got 19/20. The winning teams got 20/20, so it was really close,” Victor said.

David Hartigan, co-head coach and math teacher, said the team is now looking toward future competitions, which include the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics regionals on Feb. 28, and ICTM state on April 18, which they won last year.

“The biggest thing is, I want the kids to have fun, you know,” Mr. Hartigan said. “I mean, you know, I want to compete, like last year, we won ICTM.”