Middle School Places 2nd at Academic Challenge Nationals

The Middle School Academic Challenge Team returned home from Chicago with a second place trophy from a national competition in Chicago. Working collaboratively as a team, they took out the #1 seed from Kentucky, who had been undefeated going into the playoffs against #8 seeded Hawken. They then passed by the LaGrange team before moving into the final game against Holy Name, also from Kentucky. Though the Hawken team stayed tough against a team that had been dominating throughout the weekend, they were defeated in the last couple of rounds and finished with a second place win in the Chicago Nationals - an amazing accomplishment given that the tournament featured 17 of the top middle school teams in the country.

This is the third year for Middle School Nationals, and Hawken has been invited to attend all three of those years, placing fifth in the nation in 2008, third in 2009, and second in 2010. The teams' strong efforts during the school year have been rewarded, and we congratulate them on their success!

Coached by Pat Jewell, the team members are as follows: Varsity - Alex Kaufman (captain), Jack Crowley, Will Mascaro, Sindhura Vallabhaneni, Jack Weisman, Marty Zhu. Junior Varsity - Max Schachere (captain), Derrick Liu, Aman Nair, Emma Ritz, Dennis Wu, Matthew Zhu.