{"id":7298,"date":"2016-05-04T10:32:32","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T14:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=7298"},"modified":"2016-05-04T10:03:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T14:03:40","slug":"henderson-hs-takes-2nd-in-state-academic-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=7298","title":{"rendered":"Henderson HS takes 2nd in state academic competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The West Chester Henderson High School academic team celebrates its second place finish at the state championships \u2014 earning a berth in the national championships later this month in Dallas.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of the brightest and best minds from Pennsylvania\u2019s high schools gathered in the Pennsylvania State Capitol building to showcase their academic prowess at the 2016 Pennsylvania State Academic Competition on Friday, April 29. Both Downingtown East High School and West Chester Henderson High School proved to be strong competitors, advancing to the semi-final rounds. West Chester Henderson High School advanced to compete in the championship round against Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School (LVA) and Blue Mountain High School.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School emerged victorious with West Chester Henderson coming in second place. Final score: LVA \u2013\u00a0105, West Chester Henderson \u2013\u00a080 and Blue Mountain \u2013\u00a055. All three teams in the championship round are eligible to compete in the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LCC (NAQT) May 27-29 in Dallas, Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy to say that we were able to have some bright, motivated LVA students join us to form a team this year,\u201d said LVA coach Peter Schmidt. Schmidt\u2019s son Alex is a member of the team and also participates in solo academic competitions. \u201cThe purpose of school is for students to learn about the world around them. Participating in Quiz Bowl is simply one by-product of learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the students who participated in the state academic competition are already champions. They earned their position in the state\u00a0competition by winning\u00a0local and regional matches in their home counties,\u201d said Jennifer Shealy, Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) special events coordinator. \u201cI would like to congratulate\u00a0all\u00a0of the\u00a0participants, as\u00a0they\u00a0represent the brightest, most dedicated academic competitors in the commonwealth.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel really good,\u201d said West Chester Henderson team captain Alex Sankaran. \u201cWe had the first and last match of the day. The end goal was to come to the state competition. We came and we\u2019re happy with our second place finish. We\u2019re proud of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state competition began at 9:00 a.m. on April 29 with 23 county academic champions from across the commonwealth. They competed against one another in a series of matches in which teams earned points in order to qualify to advance to the semifinals. Nine teams earned a spot in one of three semi-final matches. The winner of each of those matches advanced to the championship game.<\/p>\n

The journey for Chester County teams started in October 2015 with local competitions between 24 Chester County high schools. In March, West Chester Henderson won the Chester County tournament and earned the right to represent the county at the state competition. Downingtown East secured automatic entry into the state competition as the 2015 PA State Academic Competition champion.<\/p>\n

During the competition, students answered a variety of challenging questions from categories including: literature, science, American and world history, potpourri and contemporary events. Each match consisted of two rounds with ten toss-up questions for any of the teams to \u201cbuzz in\u201d and answer, and six fanfare questions per team, which are to be answered in rapid succession within 60 seconds.<\/p>\n

Each of the 29 intermediate units in Pennsylvania was permitted to send one high school academic team to participate in the competition.<\/p>\n

Of the 23 participating teams, the nine teams with the highest cumulative scores from two preliminary matches advanced to the semifinals. These semi-final teams included: LVA (205), Manheim Township (190), Spring Grove (180), Blue Mountain (175), West Chester Henderson (175), Downingtown East (155), Honesdale (150), Indiana Area (145) and Allentown Central Catholic (145)<\/p>\n

For the fifth year in a row, the Honorable John A. Lawrence of Chester County hosted the Pennsylvania Academic Competition, which is coordinated by the Chester County Intermediate Unit and sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA).<\/p>\n

The Chester County academic teams will be recognized at the Chester County Champions awards banquet hosted by Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union on May 17. At the banquet, Franklin Mint will honor the teams, as well as the Chester County All-Star Team; the Coach of the Year and the Competitor of the Year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing on Academic Team makes you well-rounded,\u201d said Neel Alex from the Downingtown East team. \u201cIt\u2019s about trying to find out what you\u2019re interested in. It will help me in the future because I am already exploring my academic interests. The more I do it, the more I enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the brightest and best minds from Pennsylvania\u2019s high schools gathered in the Pennsylvania State Capitol building to showcase their academic prowess at the 2016 Pennsylvania State Academic Competition on Friday, April 29. Both Downingtown East High School and West Chester Henderson High School proved to be strong competitors, advancing to the semi-final rounds. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3162,4250,734],"class_list":["post-7298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured","tag-state-academic-championships","tag-west-chester-henderson-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7298"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7306,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7298\/revisions\/7306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}