By: Lili Samios
This year on January 12^th, Tuscarora’s Academic Competition Team (ACT) went to Districts. They also made it to the second round of Districts. This is impressive because last year the team did not make it to Districts at all. So, what changed this year to make the team more successful?
The Academic Competition Team’s coach is Dr. Kagan, a biology teacher at the school. When asked why he thought the ACT made it to Districts this year and not last year, he said, “We had better players this year, we practiced more, and we had upperclassmen.” When asked why not all teams went to Districts he said, “The top eight make it, and there are nine teams in the District, so this year we were in the top eight.”
The Tuscarora ACT was in the top eight this year because they were able to beat both Heritage’s team, and Park View’s team during the normal season. The team did a lot better this year. When asked why Lauren Choinsky, a junior, who was on the team both this year and last year,  said, “The team was a lot better, and it had a lot more people in it.”
There were many new students on the Academic Competition Team this year: Not just freshmen, but also new sophomores and juniors. Many students joined this year because their friends were on the team, and others joined because they were going to do a winter sport but got cut.  One new junior, Joe Kreiter, said, “I enjoyed it very much. We did well [at Districts and] we got to play three games, which is more than anyone expected.”
 Academic Team Districts is double elimination. This means that every team plays at least two matches. Once a team loses two matches, they are out. Tuscarora’s team lost their first match to Woodgrove and then won their second match against Park View. The team lost their last match in the third round, but it was a close game.
If the Academic Competition Team can improve so much from their first year to this year, who knows how much they can improve next year, or even five years from now.