From staff reports
The Clarion-Limestone High School Academic Sports League competed in The United Stated Academic Decathlon in Frisco, Texas, from April 19 – 21, 2018.
The United States Academic Decathlonis a 10 event scholastic competition for teams of high school students.
Students are required to write anessaydemonstrating not just what has been learned but how to powerfully argue an idea. Participants areinterviewedby judges asking thoughtful questions about past experiences and future goals.
Students take challenging exams inart, economics, literature, math, music, science, and social science. And, at the excitingsuper quiz teams take turns solving the most stimulating challenges of all from across every subject studied while a live audience cheers them on.
Participants deliverspeeches, one on a topic of student choice and one on a topic the students have never seen before.
Each high school enters a team of nine students: 3 “A” or honor students having a 3.75 to 4.0 grade point average, 3 “B” or scholastic students having a 3.0 to 3.749 gpa, and 3 “C or below” varsity students having a 0 to 2.999 gpa.
Clarion-Limestone’s ASL team, under the direction of Lorna Ondrasik, competed as a Division IV school as a result of placing second in the state for the first time to move on to the national competition in Frisco.
While there, the team earned 10 medals. The team also placed 26 out of 77 schools at the competition.
All schools there are classified as small, medium and large. Not all schools participating are public schools, as some are private, charter or magnet schools.
Clarion-Limestone competed in Division IV, which is a collection of all second place schools from each state represented.
That makes Division IV a difficult division because C-L competed against all sizes and varieties of schools, as well as some international schools.
Clarion-Limestone placed 8 out of 17 teams in Division IV. C-L scored 39,903 total points leaving only 3,172 points between them and the first place school from California, earning 43,075 points.
The 10 medals were awarded to:
Reecie Boyles, gold medal in interview, honors division. Greyson Knepp scored a perfect 1000 points to win a gold medal in interview, scholastic division. Christian Smith won a silver medal in interview, honors division. Andrew Forest won a silver medal in music, a bronze medal in economics, scholastic division and a bronze medal in science.
Katharine Melcher won a gold medal in literature, a silver medal in music, varsity division, a silver medal in social science, and a bronze medal in the overall Division IV national competition.