By Barb Dawson
•
May 28, 2025
Montini Catholic's Math Team stood for applause on Friday, May 16th during Montini Catholic's Celebration of Excellence Award Ceremony and were honored for taking 6th Place in the ICTM (Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics) State Math Competition this spring. "The team accomplished another year of success and achievement beyond expectation," said Principal Chris Tiritilli. Earlier in the season, the team celebrated a 2nd place finish at the Lemont Invitational (among 20 teams) and took 3rd place in the AA division at the Math Teachers Association (MTA) Invitational. The Regional Meet this year was filled with awards and cemented Montini's standing as a dominant State competitor. The team had two Individual Regional Champions (Conor Kaefer '26 Lombard) and Zion Yang '26 (International student)) and four Team Regional Champions (Geometry, Algebra II, PreCalculus and Calculator Teams) with an overall team Regional 1st Place trophy. In addition to their 6th Place at State, the team celebrated their Frosh-Soph Two-Person Team (Gavin Conway '27 (Lombard) and Yingying Tang '27 (International student)) on their State Championship accomplishment. "Montini is one of only two teams, and the only Catholic team in Division 2A to qualify for the State Meet for the past 24 consecutive years. Additionally, they finished in the Top 10 for 23 of those years (and was #11 once)," said Math Team Moderator (and Math Department Chair) Chrissy McManus. Image above: Math Team - Front row l to r: Olivia Naso, Jasmine Brunke, Priscilla Martinez, Monroe MacRitchie, Ellanore Selinsky, Isabella Jaojoco, Zongyuan (Chailyn) Lyu, Yingying Tang, Lorelei Nelson, Seoyeon Park, Julia Gergen, Brianna Konopacz and Kayli Gergen; Second row: Nishika Karthi, Jack Barrett, Geethan Siram, Chris Zayed, Charles Paciga, Brendan Pully, Josh Brunke, Ruikun (Ray) Li, Andrew Hemmersmeier and Matthew Silveyra; Back row: Gavin Conway, Julian D’Anca, Michael Pivoney, Danny Sherman, Andrew Sparke, Wyatt Prater, Conor Kaefer, Thomas Healy, Zihang (Zion) Yang, Kwan Ho (Eric) Hu and Julian Reyes; Not pictured: James Schisler, Daniel Southern, Yongtai (Andy) Chen, Danni (Katerina) Xie,