The North Tama and Union Academic Decathlon teams competed at State the weekend of March 4 and 5 in Urbandale, with North Tama placing seventh out of 12 schools for overall team score in the small school division, and Union placing first in the same division.

Union’s championship win means the team will move on to Nationals to be held in Frisco, Texas at the end of April this year.

Members of the North Tama team this year include Iren Avagyan, Johnathan Cochran, Nathan Reese, Molly Sell, Hunter Finzen, Madison McKee, Samantha Ramirez, Alex Meggers, Alexis Chizek, and Chloe Randall.

Union’s team roster – featuring the most freshman the team has ever had – includes Dominic Huisman, Aidan Johnson, Adam Brehm, Kaitlyn Brustkern, Adalynn Engel, Matthew Medina, Daniel Grey, Andrew Kline, Miya Uchiyama-Hansen, Katherine Fontanini, Taryn Ambrose, and Jersey Siech.

Students from both teams came home with individual medals including North Tama’s Iren Avagyan whose speech earned the highest score out of the more than 200 students (995/1,000 points).

Avagyan received the top speech trophy and a gold medal in the Honors division.

Medalists for North Tama also include Hunter Finzen, two silver medals for science and social science in the Scholastic Division; Alex Meggers, silver medal for social science and two bronze medals for math and science, as well as bronze for third place overall in the Varsity division; Madison McKee, silver medal for her essay in the Scholastic division; and Chloe Randall, silver medal for economics in the Varsity division.

Final scores for Union including individual medals were not available as of press time.

North Tama’s head coach is Brenda Jensen, assistant coaches are Hollie Hampton and Matt Walston, while Union is coached by Kerrie Michael.