Wayland Warriors’ Academic Decathlon team competed in the Massachusetts Academic Decathlon at Ashland High School this past Saturday, scoring a victorious third place overall, an improvement over last year.

“I was surprised we came in third,” said Stephanie Liu, a member of the team. “We did really badly in regionals.” The Wayland team had placed fourth among the small schools, and eighteenth among all of the schools, at the regional meet in November.

Several members of the teams received medals. Senior Alex Way won a gold medal in math, receiving a perfect score of 1000. Senior Alison von Rohr won two gold medals, in art and in language/literature, and one silver medal in music. Junior Stephanie Liu won a gold medal in math, a silver medal in language/literature, and a bronze medal in music. Junior Victoria Gore won a silver medal in language/literature.

Academic Decathlon is an interscholastic competition where “decathletes” compete in ten testing events with students from other schools. Subjects range from art to math to language and literature. This year, the general topic of these tests was Latin America, with a focus on Mexico. Next year the subject will be the French Revolution.

Last year, the Wayland team placed eighth at States, and in 2007 they placed fifteenth.