by Peter Shelburne

On January 10, the MacDuffie math team came in first place at a meet held at East Long Meadow High School. This was the first time in two years that Deerfield had been defeated by any other team in the league. It was a well savored victory for the team, who have valiantly tried to overcome Deerfield in previous meets, only to fall a few points short each time.The MacDuffie team solidified its position in second place for the year (behind Deerfield), scoring twenty-three points above the third place team. The team is looking forward to having the opportunity to compete in the State meet in March.  There is one more “regular season” meet which will be held on February 7.

It was an exciting day as the scores came in.  At the end of individual rounds, MacDuffie trailed Deerfield by a single point.  All that remained was the team round, where all team members work together on six problems in ten minutes. Our team worked down to the wire, agreeing to a final answer in the closing seconds of the round. When the scores were finally tallied, MacDuffie had a perfect score in the team round and Deerfield missed one question. The MacDuffie team gained 3 points, putting them two points ahead for the day  and earning first place. The final score was MacDuffie 102, and Deerfield 100, with  Long Meadow high School coming in thirs with 79.  MacDuffie’s high scorers were Lucy Luo and Delasoul Lin,  who each earned 16 points in their individual rounds.