The Academic Decathlon was held at Westhill High School on Jan. 30 with competitors from Cazenovia, Cicero-North Syracuse, Liverpool, Onondaga Central, Tully, Westhill, and West Genesee high schools.
Teams from Cazenovia, Liverpool, and West Genesee placed first, second, and third, respectively, to advance to the state competition at SUNY Brockport to be held on March 12-13.
The Decathlon, coordinated by Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES, is an academic competition among high schools in Section III. Since it began as a local academic competition in California in 1968, the U.S. Academic Decathlon has grown to become an international event.
West Genesee team members that competed are Thomas Brogan, Julia Calagiovanni, John Drozynski, Kyle Ivers, Tyler Mattis, Matthew Serrao, Matthew Sliker, and Kevan Spencer. (Dante Mallaro was unable to attend.) Their coach, Scott Duda, is WGHS science teacher in the Learning Center, and he has been meeting with the team since the fall to prepare for the decathlon.
Other alternates on the team are DJ Campbell, Caitlin Nolan, and Kaitlyn Richards.
Individual medals were awarded for the highest scores on six objective written tests in music, art, language and literature, science, mathematics, and economics.
Ivers a gold medal for science, two silver medals for economics and mathematics and two bronze medals for art and music, and tied first overall at the Scholastic level for a total of six individual medals.
Spencer won two gold medals, for his scores on the language and literature and music tests. He also a bronze medals in economics, and came in third overall for the Varsity level and mathematics categories.
Two silver medals were also awarded to Calagiovanni for Mathematics and Economics.
Two bronze medals were also awarded to Sliker for Mathematics and Science for social science and economics; and to Mattis for Art.
A school’s team is composed of three “A” students (honor level), three “B” students (scholastic level), and three “C” students (varsity level). All take the same academic tests, but trophies are given for the top three individual scores in each level.
In addition to the written tests, the Decathlon features an oral “Super Quiz” on a predetermined theme conducted before an audience. The theme this year was “French Revolution.” The team came in third for the quiz.