New Berlin — Eric Schumann, a national academic decathlon winner, and his new teammates on the Eisenhower High School decathlon team are already preparing for decathlon competition next year.
Eric was the overall winner in individual standings in the national Academic Decathlon online competition last semester. The Eisenhower team captured second place among mid-sized schools.
Academic decathlon teams are a cross section of students with three having grade point averages of 3.75 and above, three with 3.0 and above and three under 3.0.
A 'new level'
"We went to a new level this year, for sure," said Stephanie Blue, who has coached the team for nine years along with Erik Fountain. The highest the team had ever placed before was third in the state, she said.
This year, it placed second and earned the right to represent Wisconsin in the online "virtual" academic decathlon which was held at the same time the 28th annual national competition was held in Memphis. The "virtual" competition was started two years ago for teams that had battled to second-place finishes in their states.
Besides taking second in the nation against 16 teams from mid-sized schools, Eisenhower ranked third overall among the 36 medium and small school teams representing 21 states. A team representing Idaho took first in the virtual competition.
Eisenhower's nine-member team also accumulated several awards.
The team consisted of seniors Sean Heyrman, Christopher Rowe, Abigail Yorton, Kyle Seifert and Bryce Meyer. Juniors competing on the team were Eric Schumann, Amanda Malinauskas, Tyler Schuman and Ashleigh Sagat.
Scoring points, honors
Like a track team, the students competed in individual events, accumulating a team score. Each wrote an essay and took a battery of written tests on language and literature, economics, math, art, music, social science, and a super quiz in science.
Six team members came home with individual honors.
Eric won three gold medals - in science, in economics and in language and literature. Eric also went home with four silver medals. They were in social science, music, art and math. He also won a bronze medal for his essay.
For being the top scorer overall among the 36 medium and small size schools, he received a $750 scholarship and for being the highest scorer on the Eisenhower team, he was awarded a $250 scholarship.
The Eisenhower team was declared Rookie of the Year and the school was awarded a printer/fax/copier.
TEAM AWARDS
Sean Heyrman - gold medal in science, a silver medal in economics and two bronze medals in music and art
Abigail Yorton and Kyle Seifert - gold medals in music
Christopher Rowe - a silver medal in music
Ashleigh Sagat - a silver medal in science.
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