The academic decathlon teams from Nimitz and Irving high schools are headed to state! Nimitz won silver and Irving placed fourth in the large-school division of the Region IX meet held last weekend in Mesquite.
Nimitz will be making its 32nd consecutive appearance at state. At regionals, Alan Ta led the way as the top scoring student from Nimitz, and Juan Gonzalez was exceptional as the meet’s No. 1 C student, winning several gold medals. Each Nimitz student won at least one individual gold medal. Other Nimitz team members are Ryan Truong, Jessica Aguilera, Sami Carranza, Genesis Gonzalez, Rodrigo Betancourt and Karen Garcia. Coaches are Greg Jackson, Greg Thomson, Marc Slette and Marlene Hernandez.
Irving, who has seven new team members, qualified for the state meet for the fourth consecutive year. The team was led by Minh Vu, who earned a perfect score and gold medal in math and third place in interview. Giancarlos Dominguez won No. 2 overall B student. Other Irving team members are Joe Rucker, Victoria Gillespie, Fredi Hernandez, Jake Giddens, Angel Diaz, Samuel Nguyen and Chance Malcomesius. Irving coaches are James Newman, Randall Winter, Carlos Cruz, Kristin Lynch, Frank Houser, Jonathan Fontenot, Hector Zapata and Brian Thompson.
The state academic decathlon meet is March 8-10 in San Antonio.
