Congratulations to the Sierra Canyon Math Team for achieving 1st place in their division at the Princeton University Mathematics Competition (PUMaC) for the second consecutive year!
The eight-student team, consisting of captain Alex B. '24, Shin M. '26, Atticus M. '27, Thomas M. '27, Nikhil M. '26, Dylan O. '24, Frank Y. '24, and co-captain Tiger Z. '25, flew to Princeton in November along with Coach Tillman to compete in PUMaC after completing a weeklong portion of the contest back home. The victory stems from individual performances on chosen Focus Rounds in addition to Team Round and Power Round scores. As four students earned the opportunity to compete in the Individual Finals—a first in the School's history—their combined efforts illustrated the depth of our talent.
The Individual Finals round included a 90-minute, 3-question exam for students who finished in the top 10 of one of their chosen Focus Rounds.
In Geometry:
- Tiger secured 1st place in their division.
- Atticus tied for 8th.
In Number Theory:
- Tiger claimed another 1st place.
- Thomas tied for 4th.
- Alex finished 8th.
This triumph is a testament to the collaborative spirit that defines the team. The sum of individual performances determines the overall scores of a team, meaning that each student's scores significantly contributed to Sierra Canyon's win. The years of dedication and rigorous training manifested strongly at Princeton this year.
As a group, the team placed 1st overall in their division on the Team Round and earned 2nd on the Power Round. "I am very proud of their work on the Power Round," Coach Tillman said. This weeklong endeavor required students to construct proofs of results in Affine and Projective Geometries using concepts from Topology and topological spaces—subjects entirely new to them when they began the undertaking. The team put in an enormous amount of time, each student exerting 40 to 50 hours of thought, effort, and writing on it. Their final submission contained 58 pages of dense mathematical writing. Through solving the problems, the teammates learned a hefty amount of college mathematics they might not have otherwise seen until their upper-division college coursework.
Congratulations once again to these exceptional Trailblazers. Your success is a prime example of excellence!
#SCUpperSchool #SCMathTeam
