Local Students Do Well In Mathcounts Competition At Rose Hulman

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Honey Creek Middle School finished eighth in the Indiana MATHCOUNTS competition hosted by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Saturday.

Two Honey Creek mathletes, eighth-grader Aadil Parvaz and seventh-grader Jayce Dix, finished in the top 24 in the competition, which featured 200 of the state’s best young mathematicians from 43 middle schools.

“I’m proud of all of the kids,” said Bob Fischer, coach of the Honey Creek squad. “To have 200 talented young mathletes here at Rose-Hulman is a great thing.”

The students with the top-four highest overall scores will represent Indiana at the national MATHCOUNTS competition May 12-15 in Washington, D.C. Those four students will be Jack Liu of Carmel Middle School, Taiga Nishida of Happy Hollow (West Lafayette), Aniket Biswal of Creekside Middle School (Carmel, Indiana) and Jacob Zhang of Clay Middle School (Carmel, Indiana).

Honey Creek’s Parvaz finished 22nd overall and Dix finished 24th. In addition to Honey Creek, Terre Haute was represented by students from Otter Creek and Woodrow Wilson middle schools and also students from the Terre Haute Christian Home Educators Association. Greencastle Middle School also qualified for the state competition.

Clay Middle School (Carmel, Indiana) had the top overall team score with West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School finishing second, Creekside Middle School (Carmel, Indiana) third, and Carmel Middle School fourth.

The competition featured several rounds of math problems in the morning, testing the students’ ability to answer difficult questions and work in teams. That was followed by a high-pressure Countdown Round in the afternoon where the top 24 students competed directly against each other in a game-show format.

Honey Creek’s Parvaz finished second overall in the Countdown Round. Carmel’s Liu finished first.

The Indiana MATHCOUNTS competition is sponsored by the Indiana Society of Professional Engineers to promote mathematics development among youths throughout the state.

MATHCOUNTS was developed to improve math literacy in middle schools, and as a way to make parents, educators and the public aware of career opportunities in mathematics. The program impacts these student “mathletes” at an age when they are formulating attitudes about math and technology, and encourages them to pursue careers in science, engineering and mathematics.