Despite a reorganization of classes at the State meet, Cotter proved it has some of Minnesota’s strongest math students.

On pi day, March 14, 2016 (or 3/14/16, 3.1416) Cotter math team competed in the Minnesota State High School Mathematics League.

Nine members of Cotter’s math team attended this meet: Sang-Hyuk Lee, Brennan Schaffner, Hyogun Yi, Ruxin Qiaoyang, Bingheng Yang, Hyesu Shin, Seoyoun Oh, Ben Windley-Daoust, and Jin Kyu Kim.

Also, Sang-Hyuk Lee participated in the individual invitational. “He finished somewhere in the middle of the pack.” said Eric Errthum, Cotter’s math team coach and Winona State math professor.

This year, the rules of the Stater meet changed. There were sections Tier 1 and Tier 2 last year, and Cotter was in Tier 2 section which was for small schools and Tier 1 schools had larger enrollments. This year, schools were divided into three sections regardless of size but, rather based on performance earlier in the season. These classes were called Alpha class, Beta class, and Gamma class. Alpha class is the top third for the season, Beta class is the middle third, and Gamma class is the bottom third.

Cotter was placed in the Alpha class and placed 12th, so essentially making Cotter the 12th strongest team in the State regardless of enrollment.

Coach Errthum hopes for kids to get a chance to learn new pieces of mathematics and review topics that they might have seen in class. Also he wants students to learn to put together a variety of techniques to reach a solution and how to work in a free-form problem situation. Moreover, he wants kids on the math team to  “HAVE FUN DOING MATH!” he said.’

Check other rankings at this site: http://mnmathleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2016-Alpha-Class-Tournament-Team-Rankings1.pdf