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This story was submitted by middle school Latin teacher Lisa Masoni and upper school Latin teacher Scott Paterson.
Over the weekend of March 16, Harker Junior Classical League (JCL) students headed south to Sage Hill School to attend the JCL State Convention. They enjoyed workshops, fellowship with Latin students from all over the state and competitions involving many aspects of classical knowledge. The students performed admirably, winning many prizes and earning the middle school first place at the middle school level and the upper school second place at the high school level.
Upper school students brought back the following awards in individual categories:
In the HS-2 category (for Latin 2 students):
Jessica Chang, grade 10: first in Roman Daily Life; Serena Wang, grade 10: first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations; Tyler Yeats, grade 12: first in Latin Derivatives; Anthony Luo, grade 9: second in Classical Mythology.
In the HS-3 category (for Latin 3 students):
William Bloomquist, grade 10: first in Catullus Recitation; Elisabeth Siegel, grade 9: first in Academic Pentathlon, second in Classical Mythology, second in Grammar; Sreyas Misra, grade 11: tied for second in Latin Derivatives; Allison Wang, grade 9: tied for third in Academic Pentathlon, third in Classical Mythology, third in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
In the HS-Adv division (for students in Latin 4 and above):
Nik Datuashvili, grade 12: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Reading Comprehension, first in Latin derivatives, second in Latin Vocabulary, third in Latin Sight Reading (Poetry); Kevin Duraiswamy, grade 11: tied for first in Latin Sight Reading (Prose), first in Catullus Recitation, first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations, second in Grammar; Richard Fan, grade 12: tied for first in Ancient Geography, first in Classical Art, second in Roman Daily Life; Maya Nandakumar, grade 10: first in Dramatic Interpretation (Girls); Erik Andersen, grade 12: tied for second in Latin Derivatives, fourth in Grammar; Sean Fernandes: second in Ancient Geography; Billy Bloomquist (playing up a level): second in Latin Sight Reading (prose); Helena Huang, grade 11: tied for third in Classical Mythology, tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Laura Pedrotti, grade 12: tied for fourth in Latin Derivatives; Sophia Shatas, grade 10: fourth in Classical Mythology; Eric Zhang, grade 12: third in Ancient Geography.
In the general HS category (including all levels of high school Latin):
Sarika Bajaj, grade 11: first in Photography, third in Multimedia; Andrew Luo, grade 12: first in Chess; Maya Nandakumar: first in Vocal Competition; Sreyas Misra: second in Chess
Middle school students brought back the following awards for group competitions:
William Bloomquist, Rishabh Chandra, grade 9, Kaushik Sankar, grade 9, and Allison Wang: first in HS-3 Competitive Certamen; Elisabeth Siegel (playing up a level), Nik Datuashvili, Kevin Duraiswamy and Richard Fan: second place in HS-Adv Competitive Certamen; second Chariot Race (Girls)
Finally, Elisabeth Siegel won the Individual Academic award for HS-3 by earning the most points overall within her level.
A t the Middle School 1 level (all grade 6):
Robert Bloomquist: first in Latin Vocabulary; Nikhil Dharmaraj: first in Sight Latin Reading, second in Brass/Winds, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Taylor Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Dramatic Interpretation, third in Latin Sight Reading; Arthur Oung: second in Mythology
Middle School 2 (all grade 7 unless otherwise noted):
Justin Au: first in Reading Comp I, first in Dramatic Interpretation, first in Brass/Winds, second in Grammar I, second in Sight Latin Reading, third in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Praveen Batra: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, first in Mythology; Rahul Bhethanabotla: second in Classical Art, fourth in Ancient Geography; Adrian Chu: first in Classical Art, second in Roman History; Derek Kuo: fourth in Classical Art; Michael Kwan: third in Ancient Geography; Nikhil Manglik, grade 8: first in Ancient Geography, second in Academic Pentathlon, fourth in Mythology.
Middle School 3 (all grade 8):
Aditya Dhar: first in Latin Derivatives, first in Mythology, second in Academic Pentathlon, second in Dramatic Interpretation; Alexander Lam: first in Mottoes, Quotes, and Abbreviations, second in Reading Comp II, second in Latin Oratory, fourth in Latin Vocabulary; Venkat Sankar: first in Ancient Geography, first in Roman Daily Life, first in Reading Comp II, first in Sight Latin Reading; Arjun Subramaniam: second in Latin Derivatives, second in Mythology, third in Reading Comp II; Arnav Tandon: first in Reading Comp III, second in Grammar II; Austin Tuan: first in Grammar II, first in Academic Pentathlon; Albert Xu: fourth in Mythology; Raymond Xu: first in Classical Art, first in Roman History, fourth in Ancient Geography.
In the chapter competitions, the Certamen (quiz bowl) teams also did well, benefiting from their depth of knowledge and quick thumbs on the buzzers: Middle School 1 placed third (Bobby Bloomquist, Nikhil Dharmaraj, Taylor Lam and Arthur Oung; Allison Cartee, grade 6, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 2 placed third (Justin Au, Praveen Batra, Rahul Bhethanabotla, Adrian Chu and Nikhil Manglik; Justin Su, grade 7, also played on the team at the qualifying rounds in February); Middle School 3 placed second with an edge-of-the-seat five-point loss to Mirman (Aditya Dhar, Alexander Lam, Venkat Sankar and Arjun Subramaniam).
JCL club members who were unable to attend the convention contributed greatly to Harker’s success in chapter contests. Harker was second place in the banner, T-shirt (designed by Heidi Zhang, grade 6), scrapbook (created by Allison Cartee, grade 6) and spirit contests, and third in the chariot race.
When all the sweepstakes points were added up, Harker middle school students swept the state champion results. The winners of the Individual Academic sweepstakes were Taylor Lam (MS1), Justin Au (MS2) and Venkat Sankar (MS3). All three then went on to win Individual Combined as well.