The Gaussians kicked off their year of competition with a dominating first place win at the University of Chicago Lab North Suburban Math League meet last Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. This is the first of several meets the team competes in before attending the regional competition in February and the state competition in April.

It has been a great start to the year, according to freshman coach and assistant Julie Saller. “Last year we started out slow, with a very disappointing start to the year with. But, by the end of the year we did fantastic, finishing tenth in state and taking home a trophy. This year we seem to be starting much stronger, so hopefully we can keep up that level of competition throughout the year,” Saller said.

While the team overall won first place, each grade level placed in its own competitions. The freshman team took first place, the sophomore team took third place, the junior team took second place, the senior team took first place, and Oralist Joe Shayani took second place. “Our freshman and senior teams have had the strongest start so far this year, but all the teams started out well this year, and we can only hope for more improvement as the year goes on,” Saller said.

In addition, freshmen Anisha Nallakrishnan and Priya Pillai, sophomores Emily Ding and Bowen Ng, and senior Joe Shayani all earned perfect scores.

Each grade level practices once per week, and the practice certainly seems to have paid off. But another reason for such a strong performance also comes from the growth of the team’s size. More people have joined the team than last year, with the freshman team having grown the most to thirty team members. “I definitely think our tenth place finish in state has had a positive impact on our numbers.  Plus, word-of-mouth is always good, and our honors teachers have really done a fantastic job in the math department this year talking up our successes as a team and increasing interest in team,” Saller said.

The Gaussians are currently preparing for their next meet which will take place on Oct. 26. “Our next meet is on probability, which was one of our strongest outings last year as a team.  We will continue to practice the way we have so far this year and really push logical thinking for this next meet, which is what probability is based on,” Saller said. Additionally the team will be looking to earn more perfect scores to maintain its good standing in conference.