Powell Middle School remains a Mathcount powerhouse. 

The middle school Mathcounts team won the state competition for the fourth consecutive year earlier last month in Laramie, and then March 26 the eighth, seventh and sixth grade teams all finished first at the Wyoming State Math Contest.

It’s the 19th straight year the eighth graders won the state math contest. 

And the eighth grade team of Colson Sherman, Violet Peterson, Beth Black and Auzzy Carter also won first place, for the 16th straight year, in the chapter contest to reach the state Mathcounts tournament. 

These students all enjoy math problems, although Peterson said it’s their diverse knowledge of different facets of math that enabled the team to dominate. 

“I think we all just have our own individual strengths,” she said. “That way we can also make sure we’re correcting each other in that. And we all have different ways we interpret the question to make sure everybody’s on the same page.”

Peterson only joined the team for her final middle school year after she decided to get more involved and realized, liking the challenges of math, there was a club for that. 

Sherman, on the other hand, has been a mathlete all three years of middle school. 

“Now I do pretty well when it comes to the actual math aspect, but then it was a lot more social,” he said of his sixth grade year. “But that’s OK, because I also enjoy math.”

Black, who is a fan of geometry, such as triangles, said she also likes reason problems, while Peterson similarly likes geometry but tries to steer clear of too many words. Colson is a fan of algebraic equations. 

All of them, with the addition of sixth grader Bryson Light, were also a fan, while on the Laramie trip to the state Mathcounts event, of a card game they picked up along the way that wound up leading to many long playing sessions on a trip filled with much more than math. 

“Oh, it was really fun,” Black said of Laramie. “A lot of the time we were not spending it doing math. Like we did math for a very small portion of the trip, but it was really fun.”

Light said he enjoyed getting to hang out with the eighth graders and using his top flight math skills, which is what drew him to the club in the first place. 

“It’s a cool experience,” he said. 

     Chapter Contest

The team of Colson Sherman, Violet Peterson, Beth Black and Auzzy Carter took first place. In the individual competition, Sherman placed first, Peterson was second, Black was fifth, and Auzzy Carter took sixth. In the Countdown Round Sherman placed first, Black was third, and Peterson finished in fourth place. Christiano D’Alessandro, Paele Rapp and Bryson Light all placed in the top 12 as individuals. Keaton Keller and Kye Carter also competed.  

State Mathcounts 

The Powell mathletes took first place in the team competition. Colson Sherman placed in the top eight overall as an individual and in the top four of the Countdown Competition.

Wyoming State Math Contest

The eighth grade Powell team placed first overall. The team included Colson Sherman, Violet Peterson, Beth Black and Auzzy Carter. In the individual results Sherman placed first, Peterson was second, Black finished in third and Carter took fourth place. The seventh grade team also placed first. The team consisted of Paele Rapp, Christiano D’Alessandro, Keaton Keller and Madi James. In the individual competition, Rapp and D-Alessandro placed first, Keller was fourth, and James took seventh place.

The sixth grade team finished in first. The team consisted of Bryson Light and Kye Carter. In the individual competition, Light placed first and Carter was second.