Academic Powerhouse

Raider Brain Warriors Take Lead
by Martin Zazueta & Dwayne Codding

Last week was a great week for your SOH's Academics program. On Wednesday February 17 at an awards banquet at the University of San Diego, the Southwest High Academic Decathlon team ranked for the eight straight year in the top three schools in the county for the regional competition which took place on February 6 at Olympian High School. SOH received the 3rd place award for the second year in row. This time around, though, they beat out last year's second place winner, the Academy of Our Lady of Peace.

The results of this year once again proved the power of hard work as SOH faced a serious of setbacks this year such as having a brand new head coach of the program (Coach Adam Orin, a second year Physics & Physical-earth science teacher at SOH), having received their study materials three months late in October due complications with the district's budget, having been unable to go on the traditional museum trip to study the selected artworks (this year all 17 artworks would have been in New York's Metropolitan museum of Art), also not having enough people on the team especially for each of the 3 GPA divisions (in fact the final team consisted of only 8 out of 9 Decathletes). Another issue was that they had little access to rooms to study in and practice their speeches in throughout the year, and lacked consistent help from an overburdened staff (although various staff members contributed in any way they could).

Despite these and various other smaller problems, the Decathlon was able to outwork virtually most of its competition. Overall, the team won 3rd place in two of the ten events: Social Science & Art. Also the team won 12 medals: 4 going to Varsity division Dwayne Codding(who was awarded a bronze for Math, Literature, & Art while getting a silver in the Essay), 2 medals went to Scholastic division - Francisco Munoz for a bronze in Economics & a gold for Social Science. The remaining 6 went to Scholastic division Captain Martin Zazueta for bronze in Speech & Social Science, silver in Interview Literature & Art, and a gold in Economics (Martin also placed 3rd in the county for his division).

However, besides medals the team also scored 2nd place in the Super Quiz Relay test. Honorable mentions go to Elma Gonzalez of the Honors division for having the second highest score in the team. Also for an honorable mentionwas Grisele Gonzalez, also of the Honors division, who had the highest score on the team for any single event, - the Interview, having scored 955 out of a possible 1000 points. Unfortunately, due to the highly competitive nature of the high GPA students of the Honors Division, she was unable to receive a medal for her remarkably high score. And when asked how she felt about her score and the overall outcome of the Decathlon she had this to say: “ I'm glad I did my best to help the team and to help represent our school. I feel we accomplished plenty which showed in our team score, and I'm glad that my score was able to contribute significantly to the final score that led to our ranking”. Also when asked about how he felt about this year's result, Coach Orin said that he was “very proud and honored to be associated with such a group of smart young people”. Coach Orin also commented that for next year (for which the theme will be “The Great Depression”) his goals are to win the Super Quiz Relay and to help his team get more gold medals.

Apart from Decathlon the SOH Academic League have been on a roll by defeating Montgomery, Castle Park, Sweetwater, and Mar Vista. Both JV and Varsity have been doing a terrific job at playing the game. Let it be noted that for the first time ever in Southwest High Academic League history, the main starters and contributers to the overall score have been 2-3 Freshmen who are part of a pool of about 10 freshmen like Salvador Navarro and Ruben Vega who have been the leading scorers for JV this year. These players and others are no rookies though they have been playing this for a while now, as they had played middle school Knowledge Bowl. Yes, that's right - these battle-hardened veterans have been ready for action for weeks before their first game, after intense training under the SOH Academics Program that started since late June, and these elite freshmen along with their returning 11th grader teammates (who are second-year players) are ready to dominate the South Bay league competition.

The Varsity team consists 3 four-year seniors, 2 battle-hardened sophomores, a 3rd-year junior, 2 second-year seniors, and 2 first-year seniors who have also been hard at work to perfect their playing techniques and speed. Like the JV, they are also 4-0 and are fighting to reach the Metro Conference championship for the 8th year in the row and will hopefully head on to the county playoffs for the 8th time in this decade since 2001, 2003-2007, & 2009. The Leaguers' next match will be against Olympian on Thursday February 25 in the Library at 3 P.M.
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