The Overbrook School fifth grade math team won the Catholic Math League’s Division I National Championship, and fifth grade student Sachin Bhave was the top individual scorer in the competition.
Teams from more than 30 Catholic schools around the country participated in the national math competition. Bhave finished ahead of 631 other fifth-grade students to be crowned the National Champion.
Also from Overbrook’s team, Julia Petroni finished fourth, Margie Clark fifth, and Mary Kate Adler seventh.
Catholic Math League is a national math competition that was started in 1997 to develop test taking skills in participating students when they take achievement tests and college entrance exams. Math contests are offered for each grade level from third grade through Advanced Math, each consisting of four tests.
Teams from other schools in the Diocese of Nashville also performed well in the fifth-grade national competition: Christ the King School finished third; St. Henry School seventh; and St. Rose of Lima School in Murfreesboro 10th.
The results for other grade levels included: third grade – Overbrook , seventh; fourth grade – Overbrook seventh, Christ the King 13th, St. Rose 20th; sixth grade – St. Matthew School in Franklin 10th, Overbrook 16th, St. Henry 21st, Christ the King 22nd, St. Rose 25th; seventh grade – Overbrook fifth; St. Rose ninth, St. Henry 21st; Pre-Algebra – St. Rose 13th, St. Matthew 15th; Algebra 1 – St. Matthew 18th, Overbrook 19th, St. Henry 28th.
Other Overbrook students who received awards in this competition include third-grader Finley Rand and seventh-grader Mary Braden Weber who each took second place in Division I in their respective grades.
The fifth-grade intermediate math team at Overbrook also scored well in their first Perennial Math Competition season. The team earned a National award plaque for being in the top 10 percent of all fifth-grade competition teams. Overbrook’s top scorer was Sachin Bhave, who scored 21 points out of a possible 24 during the competition season.
Sachin Bhave and six other team members, Margie Clark, Julia Petroni, Sophie Crosslin, Margaret McLeod, Ann Curley, and Mary Kate Adler also earned individual “National top 10 percent” awards. One of the fourth-grade “Rookie” team members, Alexa Sarb, also received an individual national top 10 percent medal.
“The math team students have worked very hard this year on their problem-solving strategies, and the Overbrook fifth grade has emerged as a national powerhouse team,” said Overbrook’s elementary math coach and SOAR enrichment teacher Marion Cianciolo.
In addition to participating in the Catholic Math League and Perennial Math competitions, an Overbrook eighth-grader, Genevieve Strickland, completed her accelerated geometry curriculum and utilized her advanced math skills to conduct a unique capstone project: a sundial for the school. Overbrook School’s Math Counts Team, coached by Junior High math teacher Jacquie Grytza, participates in the international American Mathematics Competitions (AMC). A fifth-grader, Ezra Sucre, was recognized as a top world scorer. The AMC 8 is designed to promote problem-solving skills and provide an opportunity for middle school students to develop positive attitudes towards analytical thinking and mathematics that can assist in future careers.
