The Maine School of Science and Mathematics, in Limestone, took first place in the Maine State Math Meet held April 3 at the Augusta Civic Center. More than 900 students participated and MSSM representatives won five medals. Brett Foster, a senior from Fairfield, earned the only perfect score and received the George Millay Award, named after the Maine native who helped establish the New England Math League. Brett Foster said, “I was excited that all of my hard work from over the past 4-plus years has paid off. This will certainly help me in my future career in the STEM field,” according to a news release from the school.

The MSSM Math Team consisted of 10 students: Tobyn Blatt, a senior from Brunswick; Brett Foster; Wyatt Giroux, a senior from Wales; David Govoni, a senior from Skowhegan; James Hawkes, a sophomore from Portland; Jordan Theriault, a junior from Caribou; Ethan Winters, a junior from Farmington; Hyoju Kweon, a junior from South Korea; Jack Kang, a junior from South Korea; Wesley Chalmers, a freshman from Scarborough; and Eunice Liu was the alternate. Wyatt Giroux said “I feel like the Maine Association of Math Leagues has been helpful in preparing me for the critical thinking that I will need in engineering, which is what I plan to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” according to the release.

Five of the 10 members earned medals at the event. Foster captured the first place spot for both the event and the overall regular season. Govoni, who plans to attend the University of Maine, was third in the meet and sixth for the regular season. Hawkes took first place for sophomores graders and fourth in the regular season. Winters received first place for juniors and seventh for the regular season and Kang received eighth place for juniors.

This was the last math meet for Pete Pedersen, Math Department Chair at MSSM, as he will retire from teaching at the end of this school year. He has taken the MSSM team to the state meet for 16 years and chaired the meet from 1991 to 2008. Blatt, who plans to attend the University of Maine to study economics and mathematics, said, “For this year’s state meet we went in knowing it was Mr. Pedersen’s last year which added a little bit more pressure than in the past, but we couldn’t have been happier with the result. I think I speak for our whole team when I say that this year felt a little bit more special to be able to give Mr. Pedersen a trophy in his last meet,” according to the release.


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