In the final meet of the 5-meet Central Maine Math League (CMML) season, the Boothbay Region Seahawks math team moved up to grab one of the three trophies awarded in the small school division of the 24-school league. The meet 5 performance was one of the team’s strongest of the year and was perhaps motivated in part by entering the final match one point behind the Monmouth team, a school not currently viewed favorably by Boothbay basketball fans and players.

When the final scores were tallied, Boothbay Region finished behind strong teams from Kents Hill and Isleboro while defeating teams from Monmouth, Hall-Dale, Carrabec, Wiscasset, and Winthrop.

The CMML season begins in September and concludes in March. Each meet involves problems on fixed subjects. The notoriously difficult final meet features questions on conics, circles and spheres, algebraic fractions and factoring, statistics, and trigonometric equations and identities. Due to three weather-caused postponements, the Boothbay team gained two valuable practice sessions and had their best meet 5 score in years, easily defeating the Monmouth team 110-61.

Competing for the Seahawks during the season were seniors Connor Demmons, Max Hoecker, Kyle Alley, Hayden Brewer, and Hailey Greenleaf; junior Faith Blethen; sophomore Rowan Kristan; and freshmen Graham Harris, Ryan Russell, and Cody Field. Connor Demmons was the team’s high scorer for the year and won a trophy for being the highest scoring senior among all the schools at the Mountain Valley Conference tournament, at which the Seahawk team finished in fifth place.

The Seahawk math team next travels to the Maine State Math Meet at the Augusta Civic Center on April 3rd where they will test their mettle against all the other high schools in Maine. The state math meet is an extravaganza that must be witnessed to be believed and involves all of Maine’s best and brightest—nearly 1000 competitors—simultaneously taking the entire exhibition floor of the civic center to do math problems. The math season then concludes with the in-school Genius Trophy competition at which the Boothbay team members compete with each other to win a generally obnoxious sculpture made from components such as scrap wood, railroad spikes, and floral wire. The competition varies from year to year but generally includes math mixed with madcap general knowledge questions running the gap from the rivers of Maine to Paris fashion houses to sports figures to music to world geography.

The team is coached by Peter and Nancy Gilchrist who, as always, salute the students, the BRHS teaching staff, the parents, the school administration, and the entire community for their support and encouragement.