By Micaella Rodriguez Staff Writer
The UIL Academic Panthers swept the District competition on March 26 and 27, 2021 at Holmes High School to capture first place. Several teams placed first including Speech and Debate, Computer Science, and Current Events. A few teams placed second overall and the Panthers went home with a total of 324 points. Second place school was Jay with 278 points and third place sweepstakes was newcomer Harlan with 227 points. Students placing in the top three and members of first place teams advance to compete on April 16 and 17, 2021.
In Speech and Debate events, for Cross-Examination debate the team of Shasha Ogork and Beverly Quintana earned first place and advanced to State. In Lincoln Douglas debate, Charis Key earned second place. In Informative Speaking Ogork earned first place. In Poetry, Adison Garza won third place. In Prose, Jasmine Evenstad earned second place and Yash Patel earned third place. In Persuasive Speaking, William Walker earned first place.
“I prepared for the different categories all year, I conducted research, practiced, and debated this topic for many months prior to the UIL Competitions,” Walker said.
To those who wish to participate in UIL Walker said, “You will learn a huge amount of fascinating things that will make you a more informed, rounded, and thoughtful person. All of this while being surrounded by fun and energetic people that creates an amazing atmosphere of learning that you can’t get anywhere else.”
In Math events, sophomore Jayvin Pena placed first in Calculator Applications, Francesco Payan placed sixth, Isabella Ireland placed eleventh. In Mathematics Jayvin Pena placed third, Adriana Delagarza placed fifth, Payan placed sixth. In Number Sense, Pena placed third and Payan placed seventh. The team won second place overall.
“The reason I am driven to keep competing in UIL is that I get to compete in subjects I love. Instead of keeping Math or Computer Science confined to busy work and stressing over grades, I can just go out there and have fun with my team and learn quite a lot while doing it,” Pena said.
In Computer Science, junior Keayen Jeppson earned first place and the team with Jayvin Pena and Cyrus Bushong won first place overall. Pena placed fourth and Bushong placed fifth.
“I completed practice exams which were copies of previous UIL exams so that I could prepare for that section of the Computer Science event. For the hands-on coding portion of the UIL contest, I also coded some programs from previous UIL contests and timed myself to the two hour time limit and tried to code as many of them as possible As the exam portion of the Computer Science UIL was timed to 45 minutes (with 40 questions), I had to make sure I did the easy questions first, and skip the ones I was unsure of, as you lose points for every wrong answer. Doing so was crucial to keep my score as high as possible, which definitely contributed to helping me get first place,” Jeppson said.
For English events, in Literary Criticism, Brooke Burriola earned first place. In Spelling Isabella Ireland earned second place. In Ready Writing, Belen Cocke earned third place, Adriana Delagarza placed eighth and Alysandra Avila placed ninth.
In Current Issues, Ireland earned third place. Jasen Drileck earned sixth place and Mya Sachey earned seventh place. Together Drileck, Sachey, and Ireland advance to Region as first place team.
“I have been competing in UIL Academics since my sophomore year, and since then I have competed in a total of 5 areas. I absolutely love being able to test my knowledge and work with a team to achieve greatness! I also plan to continue to compete through my senior year,” Ireland said.
The students will continue to study and prepare for the Region UIL Academic competition.
In UIL Theatre events, Theatrical Design State Qualifiers are senior Conner Ballenger for Set Design, senior Elisa Pedraza Sanchez for Hair & Makeup Design and junior Lillian Land for Costume Design. They will compete at State on May 7 and 8, 2021.