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2008-2009 Academic Boosters archived
[August 4, 2009] All the news, photos, and donor recognition lists from the 2008-2009 school year have been moved to the archives pages as we prepare this website for a brand new year of excitement and success for our academic teams.
Please remember to renew your membership for 2009-2010 and support our academic teams.
2009-2010 Academic Boosters News
Policy Debate Team at WACFL 1 Tournament
On October 31st, the Policy Debate team competed at its first WACFL tournament of the year, which was held in Hayfield Secondary School. In Varsity, Hannah Clark & Andre Kessler placed 1st, Johnny Kim & Max Wang placed 2nd, and Akshay Deverakonda & Abigail Xu placed 5th. In addition, Hannah Clark won the 2nd place Speaker award. In Junior Varsity, John Chae & Jared Golant placed 3rd, and Eric Kim & Samuel Luo placed 5th.
Public Forum Debate Team at WACFL 1
At the first WACFL tournament of the school year, Public Forum Debate Team members participated in both the varsity and junior varsity divisions. In the varsity division, Emily Yu and Rebecca Friedman placed 4th with a 3-1 record. In the JV division, Alvina Jiao and Eugenie Quan placed 3rd with a 4-0 record.
Quizbowl Team at University of Mayland
The TJ Quiz Bowl team did outstandingly at the University of Maryland’s Fall Tournament on September 26, 2009 with the A team finishing third out of 24 participating teams. The A team, consisting of Stephen Eltinge (captain), Olivia Murton, Siddharth Hariharan and Diana Gerr, achieved a 10-2 record at the tournament. B team, which consisted of Peter Town (captain), James Bradbury, and Ananth Sridhar, achieved a 6-5 record. Individuals placed high are James Bradbury placing 7th, Stephen Eltinge placing 9th, and Diana Gerr placing 12th. TJ also successfully hosted its very own tournament, the Thomas Jefferson Invitational Academic Tournament on October 17, 2009.
Lincoln Douglas Debate at the Wakeforest National Earlybird Tournament
At the Wakeforest National Earlybird Tournament, all four of TJ’s competitors made it to elimination rounds--something we've never managed before. Betty Huang and Omeed Maghzian competed in the JV octafinal round; Ashneil Jain competed in the varsity double octafinals; and Akaash Gupta made it to the quarterfinals. Then at the WACFL 1 tournament, at the Varsity level, we had three qualifiers who will go on to compete in the Metrofinals tournament in March: Akaash Gupta, Betty Huang, and Daniel Sun. At the JV level, Karishma Popli was the seventh seed speaker.
Forensics Team Update
The Forensics Team competed at Battlefield High School in Haymarket on October 14th. In Extemporaneous speaking, Rebecca Friedman took third place and Kyle Angelotti took fourth place. Leif Bakke and Arvin Ahmadi tied for first place in Original Oratory. Hillary Liu took First Place in Declamation.
Model UN at George Mason High School COnference
TJHSST Model UN Delegation claimed the Secretary General's Award for Best Large School Delegation at George Mason High School (GMHSMUN 2009) Conference on October 17th.
TJ Delegates won Best Delegate Awards in 7 out of the 10 committees they participated in! Congratulations to all the Delegates!
Best Delegate Awards were presented to Andrew Barlow, Mike Crumplar, Brendan Kim, Swetha Pasala, John Pulice, Serena Saffarini, Anirudh Saraswathula, Dan Wang, Deanna Zhu, and Jacob Zucker. Outstanding Delegates were Collin Jones, Miller Ke, Arda Menzilcioglu, Neal Milstein, Steve Qian, Kishore Rao, Avi Sachs, Mohima Sanyal, and Dennis Wang. Honorable Delegates were John Han, Ashneil Jain, Mayank Jain, Hannah Lan, Kevin Lim, William Lucht, Matt Lycas, Shreyas Mahapatra, Andy Mai, Jason Miller, Adam Mounts, Ryan Pillai, Pranava Raparla, Sid Sethi, Shiram Sundararamah, and Anurag Shyamala. Verbal Commendations were awarded to Chantelle Ekanem, Ashu Goel, Wills Johnston, Kamna Kathuria, Michael Nguyen, Richard Nguyen, Allen Shi, and Shiying Yang.
Quizbowl Team Qualifies for Nationals
The TJ Quizbowl team went to the "Rumble on the Pike" tournament held at Richard Montgomery High School on Saturday, September 12th. Team A, consisting of Stephen Eltinge (captain), Diana Gerr, Olivia Murton, and Seoup Youn, finished third overall in a field of sixteen teams. Team B, Greyson Lewis (captain), Siddharth Hariharan, James Bradbury, and Graham Lobel finished eighth overall. Stephen Eltinge ranked sixth overall in individual scoring out of more than sixty competitors. By finishing in the top three, the A team qualified for the High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT) held annually in Chicago.
Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas & Policy Debate Teams “Break” at Wake Forest
At the 2009 Wake Forest National Earlybird Tournament in September, TJ sent students from its Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas and Policy Debate teams. TJ’s Public Forum team Rebecca Friedman and Emily Yu won four of six rounds, breaking to semifinals. TJ’s Lincoln Douglas team sent two students at the Varsity Level, and two at the JV level. In Varsity, Akaash Gupta broke to quarterfinals, winning five of his six rounds, and Ashneil Jain broke to double octofinals, winning three of his six rounds. In Junior Varsity, Omeed Maghzian and Betty Huang both broke to octofinals by winning three of six rounds. Policy Debate sent three teams to compete at the Varsity level, and Hannah Clark and Andre Kessler broke to double octofinals, winning four of their six rounds.
Botball Team Update
On July 4th and 5th, two TJ robotics teams competed with 61 other teams in the 2009 International Botball Tournament. One TJ team placed among the top 8 teams, with 5 wins and 2 losses. The other TJ team won 2 and lost 2. Team members included Caelen Garret, Jonathan Corzo, Lio Kang, Mark Kang, Jimmy Clark, Megan Clark, David Ensey, Joel Heck, Mac Stevens, Eric Kolker, Jeremy Vercillo, David Mazzocco, and Jake Hermle. In addition, Liam Carter-Condon, Lawrence Diao, Benjin Dubishar, Samraat Goel, Steven Howard, George Li, Chris McPherson and Ashley Miller, competed as members of the Dead Robots, a multi-school team. The Dead Robots also were finalists, and won the Judge’s Choice award for “Best Engineering.”
Certamen News
TJ Certamen spent the summer preparing for and competing at the National Junior Classical League Convention held at UC Davis in July. While all TJ participants at the convention performed well on tests, creative arts, and graphic arts, special recognition is due to the individuals who participated in the national certamen. In the Intermediate level, Daniel Kim and Frederick Short, with alternates Zachary Seid and Akhila Ananthram, placed second. In the Upper Level, Anne Marie Creighton, with alternates Christopher Kilgore and Amith Ananthram, placed third.
Math, Science, and Linguistics Olympiad News
This summer, Vivaek Shivakumar represented the United States in the 7th International Olympiad in Linguistics, and received an Honorable Mention. Brian Hamrick represented the United States in two computer science Olympiads. In the Central European Olympiad in Informatics, he placed 8th and earned a silver medal. In the 21st International Olympiad in Informatics, he placed 15th and earned a gold medal.
Browse the archives for older news.