Academic Decathlon winners: `High-caliber kids,' adviser says
Call them intellectual champions.
The eight-member Vanden High Academic Decathlon team triumphed Sunday at the North Bay region competition, besting 16 other Bay Area teams.
With a first-place finish, the Travis Unified students have been invited to go on to another test of wits, memory and know-how by representing Solano County at the state competition March 2426 in Santa Clara.
Their latest winning performance at Solano Community College in Fairfield was a no-surprise effort. After all, Vanden squads have won the county competition 22 times in as many years and the California championship during three of those years.
The team, by name and grade level, is: Ethan Blunt, William Gan, Meaghan McClaflin, Patrick Rascon, Frabicio Toscano, all seniors; Xavier Ramirez and Joshua Richardson, both juniors; and Rohan Kamath, a sophomore.
“We really have high-caliber kids who want to be on a team,” said Decathlon coach David Kenyon, who's advised the team for a quartercentury at the Markeley Lane campus in Fairfield, where he teaches Advanced Placement, or AP, Micro and Macro Economics, AP U.S. History, and serves as senior class adviser.
“They put in a lot of hard work,” he added about the students, explaining why the team consistently excels at local and regional competitions.
But it is the person picked to be team captain that is the key, a person who “leads by example,” Kenyon said.
That student this year is Meaghan McClaflin, whom he called “the heart and soul of the team.”
In a brief interview Tuesday, she attributed the team's success to being “like a little, small family” and “our ability to work together.”
Meaghan boasts a 3.65 GPA and is enrolled in AP Government, AP Arts, trigonometry, German IV, and AP Literature. In the latter class, she preparing to tackle Shakespeare's “Hamlet.”
A fouryear college is in her future after graduation this spring. She has applied to four University of California campuses, Stanford University, the University of Southern California “and a couple of Ivy League schools,” including Yale University, she said.
At the state championship, the Vanden team will compete against teams from eight Bay Area counties and teams throughout the state.
The Academic Decathlon is modeled after the Olympics to stimulate academic achievement and honor “athletes of the mind,” Jennifer Leonard, a spokeswoman for the Solano County Office of Education, which hosted Sunday's competition, said in a press statement.
The competition includes tests in art, music, language and literature, mathematics, economics, science, and social science. In addition, there are communication tests that include the writing of an essay, delivering a prepared and impromptu speech and an interview.
Since 1981, the SCOE has sponsored the Academic Decathlon for local public and private high schools. Students can compete as individuals and as a team in a series of academic tests and demonstrations.
Sunday's regional competition challenged students from Solano, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Lake, Mendocino, Napa, Sonoma and Yolo counties.
Campolindo High School took second and also can proceed to represent Contra Costa County at state. Third place was awarded to Basis Independent Silicon Valley Charter from Santa Clara County.
Travis Credit Union sponsored the event and provided checks to the winning teams to help cover travel costs to the state competition, said Leonard.