WARWICK — For the ninth consecutive year, Bishop Hendricken High School is the state Academic Decathlon champion.
The team, which came in second in its division in the national competition last year and won a national championship the year prior, will now go on to compete in the United States Academic Decathlon next month in Bloomington, Minnesota.
This year’s field of Rhode Island decathletes competed in the daylong event on Sunday, March 10, 2019 at the Community College of Rhode Island, marking the 36th annual decathlon. Each team received packets of information on this year’s theme, “The Sixties,” and spent countless hours preparing for Sunday’s competition.
The Academic Decathlon is a team based competition wherein students match their intellect with students from other schools. Students compete in 10 categories: Art, Economics, Essay, Interview, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Music, Science, Social Science and Speech. Each participant had to prepare and deliver a short speech, complete an interview with the judges, and then take part in the final Super Quiz Relay.
The Super Quiz Relay has long been a crowd favorite as students in each division, varsity, scholastic and honors, compete by answering multiple-choice questions relating to the sixties theme. Hendricken also came away as the winner of the Super Quiz portion of the competition.
Sister Carol Anne Murray, the veteran coach of Hendricken’s esteemed decathlon team, knows dedication and focus are required to win the state competition. She coaches Hendricken’s decathletes like a sports team. They begin their training in the summer, and continue two days a week throughout the school year. Sister Carol Anne has always proudly proclaimed that she “owns them” as the nine-man team is required to devote all of their free time to study. She feels the time requirement develops a strong bond between the boys, resulting in a stronger overall team.
Bishop Hendricken finished with 42,478.9 points. The individual winners from Hendricken were:
Timothy Moren; Logan LeMay; David Weekers; Joseph D’Alfonso; Timothy Dziekan; Jonas Kendra; Xavier Lora; Ryan Murphy and Jack O’Hara. The team will now head to the national competition from April 25-27.
