GHS sending five teams to Academic Super Bowl state finals

Friday, April 24, 2015

Six Putnam County academic teams -- including a school-record five from Greencastle -- are headed to the state finals of the 28th annual Indiana Association of School Principals (IASP) Academic Super Bowl.

Members of the Greencastle High School Academic Super Bowl Math Team, (from left) Sean Ramey, Beth Ann Hansen and Zach Wilkerson, contemplate a question at the outset of competition Tuesday night in the GHS multipurpose room. (Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE)

The Greencastle High School English, Social Studies, Science, Fine Arts and Interdisciplinary teams, and the South Putnam Fine Arts team are eligible to compete at state competition on May 9 at Purdue University. Greencastle has never had more than four teams qualify for the state finals before, and it would have had six qualify, but the Math team fell just short on a tie-breaker.

The statewide competition focuses on English, math, social studies, science and the fine arts. In addition to the five subject areas, there is a sixth round of competition called interdisciplinary, which includes questions from each subject area. Each subject round consists of 25 questions.

During competition Tuesday night, Greencastle teams captured first place in every discipline in Class 3 at the area level, sending five teams on to the state finals -- English, Science, Fine Arts, Social Studies and Interdisciplinary. Although the Math team won the area competition, it tied for the fifth spot in state rankings but missed out on a trip to the finals by virtue of the tie-breaker.

Meanwhile, the South Putnam Fine Arts team was runner-up at the area contest to GHS but earned a trip the state finals since its score was the fifth-best Class 3 performance in the state overall.

The GHS English team -- Kelly Hansen, Ben Gellman and Alexandra Weliever and coached by Nicole Kempf -- put on the performance of the night, answering 24 of the 25 questions correctly, a feat that not only captured the area contest going away but was the best Class 3 score in the state by four answers.

Members of the state finals-bound South Putnam Fine Arts team are (from left) Samantha Batchelor, Carlee Schlatter and coach Renata Hendrickson. The SPHS team took second at the area competition in Greencastle but its score was good enough to take one of the six slots in the state finals May 9 at Purdue University.

That 24-of-25 effort by GHS was the best English score of all the more than 250 schools participating in the four different classes.

"I would like to think our students' Latin background helped," Kempf, who teaches Latin at GHS said of the "The Grandeur That was Rome" theme. "I know it did with my team. We hit the Latin roots hard."

Greencastle also had the state's best Class 3 score in the Interdisciplinary category with 19 right answers, one better than both Park Tudor and Eastern Hancock.

Meanwhile, GHS tied for the best Class 3 mark in the state in Science (22) with North Knox and in Social Studies (19) with Southwestern of Hanover.

In Fine Arts competition, GHS has 19 right, tying for second in the state, while South Putnam had 16 correct to tie Lawrenceburg for the fifth-best score heading into the state finals.

"It is very exciting to be representing our school at a state level," SPHS Fine Arts coach Renata Hendrickson said. "Both of these girls (Samantha Batchelor and Carlee Schlatter) are great students and worked very hard to accomplish this placing. We are excited to go to Purdue and see how they do."

Greencastle was again the site for several hundred student scholars representing 19 schools from throughout the region: Avon, Brownsburg, Danville, Greencastle, North Putnam, North Vermillion, Northview, Plainfield, Owen Valley, Riverton Parke, Rockville, Shakamak, South Putnam, South Vermillion, Terre Haute South, Terre Haute North, Tri-West, Turkey Run and West Vigo.

Greencastle, North Putnam and South Putnam all competed in Class 3 along with South Vermillion and Tri-West.

Putnam County winners include: English (E) -- 1. Greencastle, 2. South Putnam; Science (S) -- 1. Greencastle, 3. South Putnam; Fine Arts (FA) -- 1. Greencastle, 2. South Putnam; Social Studies (SS) -- 1. Greencastle, 2. North Putnam; Math (M) -- 1. Greencastle, 2. North Putnam, 3. South Putnam; Interdisciplinary (I) -- 1. Greencastle, 2. North Putnam, 3. South Putnam.

Team members from Greencastle included: Cecilia Pohlar -- FA, I; Kelly Hansen -- E, I; Nicholas Seaman -- M, S; Cecily Girton -- FA; Hillary Johnson -- FA, I; Zach Wilkerson -- S, M, I; Sam Savage -- M, S, I; Colin Dombrowski -- M, SS, I; Beth Ann Hansen -- M, S, I; Katie Rose Parsons -- SS, I; Elijah Secrest -- SS; Elijah Brattain -- SS; Sean Ramey - SS; Becca Moore - SS; Ben Gellman -- E; Alex Weliever -- E; Esther Hale -- FA; Lokysa Scheuermann -- FA; Connor Stimpert -- S and Julie Vermout - S.

Coaches for Greencastle are Nicole Kempf, Brad Kingma, Samantha Burke, Robin Johnson, and Glenn Hile.

Team members from North Putnam included: Kayla Clodfelter -- M, S, I; Jonah Cremean -- E, M, I; Laurel MacGregor -- FA; Kelsey Marshall -- E, M, I; Emily Stein -- S; Jakob Spangler -- S; Nick Young -- M; Dawson Ottinger -- SS; Jessica Hays -- SS; Erin Livesay -- SS; Paige Higgins -- SS; Alanna Nunez -- FA; Annie Peabody -- FA; Rachel Hamilton -- FA; and Madisyn Smith -- E.

Coaches for North Putnam are Annette Maier, Tony Freund, Kristy Lippencott, Brittney Nees and Chase Hiland.

Team members from South Putnam included: Sammy Batchelor -- FA, I; Allacyn Arnold -- M, S, I; Cora Neudeck -- E, S, I; Jarrett Curran -- E, SS, I; Chloe Carter -- S; Bradley Schrader -- M, S, I; Nick Chambers -- M; Ashley Owens -- S; Deborah Cheatham -- E; Maddison Plunkett -- E; Deanna Bishop -- E; Kyler Boyce -- SS; Caitlyn Schilling -- SS; Katlyn Retor -- SS; Lois Cheatham -- SS, I; Carlee Schlatter -- FA; and Israel Polster - FA.

Coaches for South Putnam are Emily Skoniecke, Tiffany Dickson, Theresa Doud, Jennifer Perrin, Renata Hendrickson and Natalie Hodge.

The competition at Greencastle was supported by the administration, faculty and staff of Greencastle High School, Greencastle Schools Administration, DePauw University faculty, Tri-Kappa sorority and volunteers from the community.

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