WEST CHESTER, PA, MARCH 2, 2006 - West Chester East High School won its seventh varsity championship in the history of the Chester County Academic Competition on Wednesday night, March 1, in a match against the academics from Downingtown East and Unionville High Schools.
The academics from Henderson High School placed first in a junior varsity match against Conestoga and Downingtown West High Schools, for a clean sweep of the county competition this year. Both the East and Henderson matches were held at the Chester County Intermediate Unit's Education Services Center in Downingtown. The CCIU sponsors the competition, with funding provided by the Wachovia Foundation. The Wachovia Foundatin awarded $3500 in scholarships to the teams competing in the championship match.
With the exception of a few tense moments, West Chester East held the lead throughout the varsity match. When the final buzzer sounded, the score was West Chester East, 100; Downingtown East, 70; and Unionville, 85.
The win places East second only to Conestoga High School, Berwyn, in terms of the greatest number of varsity championships in the county. Conestoga, with eight prior championships, did not make it to the varsity finals this year.
East now heads to the state Academic Competition on Friday, April 21 in the State Capitol Building in Harrisburg, where they will face the champions of other Intermediate Units across Pennsylvania. The winner of that competition will qualify for the Panasonic National Academic Challenge in Lake Buena Vista, FL June 10-13.
While East has not participated in the Panasonic competition in the past, the school’s Academic Team is no stranger to state and national competitions. They won the state championship in 1996 and have also participated, and placed, in both computer-based and face-to-face national contests in the past. Most recently – on Saturday, Feb. 25 – they won a 56-team tournament at Conestoga Valley in Lancaster County. They are the first team from outside of Lancaster County to win that tournament, which qualifies them for a National Academic Championship sponsored by Questions Unlimited in San Antonio, TX over the Memorial Day weekend.
Hard work and a competitive spirit have earned the team this year’s honors and those from prior years as well. They practice six times a week, according to team captain Adam Shellenbarger, and engage in a computer tournament once a week. Shellenbarger credited this year’s success to teamwork.
“It’s not a one-man team,” he said. “We work very well together.”
Team coach Tracy Heim echoed that sentiment when she said, “one of our strengths is that we are a ‘team.’ Each one of the students has contributed to the winning effort.”
"I am so proud of this team, I’m just bursting,” she added.
In addition to Shellenbarger, members of the East team are Donald Campbell, David Cheng, Dan Christman-Crook, Jonathan Hoppe, Arjun Plakkat, and Jeff Withington.
Coach Heim is a social studies teacher and chair of the Social Studies Department at East. Co-coach is Debbie Sabatino, a science teacher at East.
Henderson Victory Is Hard Fought
For Henderson, the junior varsity victory came in a hard fought contest that went into overtime after a tie with Conestoga at the end of the regular rounds. The score at that time was Henderson and Conestoga, 95 points, and Downingtown West, 50.
Henderson and Conestoga then entered a tense five-question tiebreaker. The winning question for Henderson was: “The distant early warning system or DEWLine is a joint project of what two nations?” Henderson correctly answered, “the United States and Canada.”
Final Score: Henderson, 110; Conestoga, 100; Downingtown West, 50.
Henderson social studies teacher David Clark said later that the students had covered the early warning system in class earlier in the day. Clark is not an official team coach but has been helping out coaches Amy Chessock and Steve Sobiec, both social studies teachers at Henderson.
“We are so proud of the students,” Chessock said. “We watched them develop their skills since September, and they really came together as a tam when preparing for the finals. They are already focused on next year, and both levels (JV and Varsity) are hoping to make the finals in 2007.”
While Henderson has not won academic championships in recent years, teams from Henderson placed in national competition and won the county championship in the 1990s.
JV team members are Jen Fan, Lauren Gilbert, Peter Jin, Dina Liu, Katharine Luginbuhl, Tom Sennett, Mark Struble, and Schuyler Swartout.
A Test of Knowledge and Recall
The Academic Competition brings together 15 Chester County high schools to compete against one another in a contest of knowledge and recall over the regular season, which runs from October through January. The teams with the top nine highest cumulative scores then advance to the semi-finals, where the finalists are named.
The competition quizzes students on world and American history, geography, contemporary events, world literature, science and mathematics. Questions are not provided ahead of time, so students must have a vast array of knowledge in these subjects stored in their minds.
For example, literature questions include classics such as Beowulf, Homer, Aristotle and Plato. Contemporary events cover anything in popular culture and world events occurring over the past three years. World history is inclusive from 1066 A.D. until the present, and can include geography. The mathematics category requires students to compute, within seconds, answers to problems in geometry, algebra, and trigonometry.
