RE LOG Fall 2024

FALL 2024 Ransom Everglades LOG 33 “The camaraderie made me enjoy math even more.” – Alex Tevelow ’28 “It was the perfect combination of hard work, kids really wanting it, and teamwork.” – Jessica Merrick, math team coach helped us solve many of the team round problems,” Li said. Added Tevelow: “The coaches were the most important part of our success. They created a very supportive environment for us to thrive as a team ... We knew they were rooting for us, and we really felt that.” The students also drew inspiration from Khohayting’s father, Jerome Suntay Khohayting, a mathematician who won a silver medal in 1989 in the International Mathematical Olympiad. He met with the team, helping the students work through problems and offering encouragement. Li also had the chance to engage with Scott Wu, the co-founder of Cognition AI who won the Mathcounts individual national championship in 2011. Wu addressed the Florida state team in advance of its fifth-place team and first-place individual finishes at nationals. Both former champions offered advice and provided a confidence boost. RE’s mathletes responded by working hard. “You have no idea how much time we put into it,” Merrick said. “We knew we had a chance to win, so we went all out preparing. The kids loved it. Math team was their ‘sport.’” At the regional Mathcounts event, Khohayting earned second place in the individual event; Tevelow finished third; Li, fourth; Sofiya Dewan ’29 , 12th; and Maxie Wu ’28, 13th. In a national math competition for middle school students – the Noetic Learning Math Contest – Li, Dewan, Khohayting and Tevelow received perfect scores. They were joined by Trevor Thomas ’29, Jeffrey Tong ’28 and Wu on the National Honor Roll while Esha Nagalla ’29, Ria Bhandari ’28, Matias Lopez-Ona ’28, Andrea Medina ’28 and Parker Schimel ’28 earned honorable mention. And in a county math competition for girls – INTEGIRLS Miami Spring 2024 – Wu finished first and Dewan finished second in the middle school individual event and, in the middle school team competition, Wu, Dewan, Medina and Nagalla claimed first place, and Maya Lee-Schonfeld ’30 , Bhandari and Alyssa Wang ’30 took second. The team’s middle school triumphs carry over to opportunities at the upper school; in 2023, Solon Sun ’25 became only the second Ransom Everglades student ever to qualify for the USA Junior Mathematical Olympiad ( John Mistele ’17 was the other) and Andrew Gedde ’25 won the state championship in the open probability division. Upper schoolers also claimed a host of successes in 2023- 24 under coach Brittney Ellzey Mujica, and have high hopes for the coming season. “Math team was one of the highlights of my middle school experience,” said Tevelow, now in the ninth grade, “and I feel lucky to have been a part of this great group of teammates and incredible coaches!” RE’s middle and upper school math teams in 2023-24 RE’s middle school mathletes Daniel Li ’28 (center) and coach Jess Merrick with the Florida state math team