The Glenbrook South math team finished sixth out of 65 teams at the state math competition held on May 6 at the University of Illinois.

Joe Karlovsky, junior math team coach, said that his goal was placing in the top ten in the state. He also added that there are individual teams that place, and any of them getting in the top ten would be a big accomplishment.

“There is top ten for the overall scores […], but then there is every individual event,” Karlovsky said. “We have what is called an eight person team, a two person team [and] a calculator team, so any one of those events to place in the top ten is a big accomplishment. Our overall team could be top ten and that would be very good too.”

Prior to state, the math team has a series of meets in their conference and for regionals. According to math team head coach Ryan Sutherlin, the math season is in two sections. The first is the conference season, called the North Suburban Math League (NSML), with the regional and state conferences following. After the conference part of their season, the GBS math team was able to be ranked in the top ten.

“Our season is broken up into two different timelines, our first is our conference season and then we have regionals and state,” Sutherlin said. “After regionals, we are currently seventh in the state going into the state competition.”

There are numerous competitions throughout the season, according to Sutherlin. One of the conference meets was notable due to the large amount of schools participating and the high finish by South, according to Sutherlin.

“Our biggest event [was when] we held [the] conference meet here at Glenbrook South in March that had sixty schools and 1,200 kids here,” Sutherlin said. “At that meet, our team finished top 15 out of 60 schools, which was really good.”

Sutherlin said that since the state conference is the biggest competition of the season, it would be competitive. But, according to Sutherlin, the math team was still expecting a high finish as they were hoping for top ten at state.

“Once we are [at state], we always shoot for top ten,” Sutherlin said. “Our highest is sixth.”

Senior Cindy Yang, who participated in the junior-senior two person team competition, shared the goals of top ten in the state with the coaches.

“I am hoping to shoot for the top ten overall for GBS, and then I really want to do well in my two person event with Isabella Kang,” Yang said.

According to Sutherlin, 28 students represented South at state in different events consisting of written teams for different grade levels, calculator team, Junior-Senior eight person team, Freshman-Sophomore team, Junior-Senior two person team, individual Senior written competition and Freshman-Sophomore and Junior-Senior relay team.

According to Sutherlin, the Junior-Senior 2 Person team of Isabella Kang and Cindy Yang finished in 10th place. The Freshmen Sophomore Relay Team 2 finished in ninth. The Sophomore Written team, the Junior Written Team , and the Freshmen Sophomore Team 1, and Cindy Yang individually in the Senior written competition all Finished in seventh place. The Junior Senior eight person team finished in sixth. Both the calculator team and the senior written team finished in fourth.