Caz AD wins Regionals

By Willie Kiernan

Cazenovia continued its winning ways. After getting to the Nationals the last three consecutive years, they began this year with another victory.

“Each year they seem to be scoring higher than the year before so the bar is constantly being raised,” said Coach Sue McKillop. “It is refreshing to see students working so hard to achieve a goal.”

On Saturday, Feb. 2, Cazenovia High School’s Academic Decathlon team competed with other area schools in the 2008 Regional Competition. After a grueling day of test taking, the results were in and Cazenovia topped the list beating out schools like North Syracuse who took second place and Liverpool who placed third.

“We got our best score yet at the Regionals,” said Andreas Godiers.

The team represented Cazenovia with pride by earning 35 metals in all and first place in the Super Quiz category.

“Having a veteran team is a good advantage,” said Alex Shepard. “Going to Hawaii last year was pretty good.”

The last three state champions traveled to Chicago, San Antonio and Honolulu respectively.

“We worked really hard and it paid off and we’re really proud of that,” said Terence Hartnett.

Next the team moves on to the state level at Brockport University on March 14 and 15 where they add speech, interview and essay to the competition.

“The experience, es[pecially with speech will help us this year,” Shepard said.

If they win the next one, Caz gets to go to California.

“I definitely feel that there is added pressure for myself and Mr. Kelly as coaches but the real pressure and drive is coming from the kids themselves,” McKillop said. “They are truly self motivated and want to continue our record of success.”

“The coaches have been a tremendous help but they let us have our own space,” said Mike Creswell.

An interesting component of the Academic Decathlon competition is that teams consist of three “Honor” students, three “Scholastic” students and three “Varsity” students.

“It’s a great opportunity for kids who don’t have the highest grades to shine academically,” said Dan deClerq.

This year’s team consists of Fritz Koennecke, Regan Esposito, Andreas Godiers, Terence Hartnett, Michael Cresswell, James Rasmussen, Alex Shepard, Dan deClerq, Tom Singer and Brendan Hartnett as an alternate. Coaches for the team are Susan McKillop and Marty Kelly.

“We’d like to thank the community for all their support,” said Fritz Koennecke.

Breakdown of the metal distribution for the team:

G-GoldS-SilverB-Bronze

Fritz Koennecke: Art-S, Science-B, Music-G, Economics-S, Lang.&Lit-G,

1st Place Overall Score Honors Division

Regan Esposito: Science-G, Music- B, Economics-B

Terence Hartnett: Art-G, Math-S, Science-G, Music-S, Economics-S,

Lang&Lit-G, 1st Place Overall Score Scholastic Division

Michael Cresswell: Art-G, Math-G,Science-S, Music-S,Economics-G, Lang&Lit-

S 2nd Place Overall Score Scholastic Division

James Rasmussen: Art-S, Music-G, 3rd Place Overall Scholastic Division

Daniel deClerq:Art-G, Math-S, Science-G, Music-G, Economics-G, Lang&Lit-