Hundreds of students, including nine from SJHHS, poured into the gymnasium of the Galen Center of USC on February 1, anxious to compete in Academic Decathlon.

The decathletes, as they are called, stepped up to compete against other schools in the Super Quiz, a series of multiple choice questions where the results were instantly shown on a large screen above them.

SJHHS Decathlon Team took third place in the Super Quiz, but that wasn’t the only event.

This Academic Decathlon competition was held over a span of two consecutive weekends. It officially began on Saturday, January 25, with events such as speech, interview, essay writing, and numerous multiple choice subject tests.

“The theme of the competition this year was World War I, something that I was actually pretty familiar with,” said competitor Connor Stewart (11).

The competition brought in 500 decathletes from over 40 public schools in the Los Angeles County area, and as for SJHHS, the results were great across the board.

“In our division as a team, we ended up getting third place in the super quiz event, and every single member of the team received a medal in their individual events since they all placed in the top five for their category,” said John Baker, Academic Decathlon coach.

Ryan Brady (12) placed second in Economics while Andrew Ferguson (12) came close behind him in fourth place. Kyle Brenneman (11) came in fifth in Language and Literature, James Gibson (12) fourth place in Art, and Kara Machos (11) fourth place in Music. Adam Margolis (11) finished in fifth place for both Science and Social Science, while Connor Stewart (11) blew away the competition and placed first in the speech category, taking the state title for that category. Jonathan Brubaker (12) and Evan Morgan (11) both received more than four medals all in multiple categories

“This was just the general combined competition for California, but we can go onto later competitions such as Nationals and Worlds and more advanced competitions” said Stewart.

Baker has never coached Academic Decathlon prior to this year, and he regarded the competition as an overall positive experience for himself as well as the students.

“I’m learning alongside the students, so it’s a new journey for all of us” said Baker.

The decathletes will continue to practice and compete in future competitions, leading up to larger scale events such as Regionals and Nationals.