BMS MATHCOUNTS Team Competes at Wright State; Yoder Qualifies for State

left to right: Coach Lawrence Miller, Isabella Welch, Max Miranda, and Caden Yoder

The 41st Annual Dayton Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition took place on Saturday at Wright State University.

The Bellefontaine Middle School MATHCOUNTS team joined 10 other schools around the Dayton Region to compete in various math skills and challenges.

Isabella Welch, Max Miranda, Caden Yoder, Ta’Kyis Savage, and Caleb Hudson were the participating Mathletes for the Bellefontaine MATHCOUNTS team.

Out of the 90 Mathletes at the competition, BMS 8th-grader Caden Yoder finished 7th overall and advanced individually to the state competition at Columbus State Community College on March 16th.

State qualifier Caden Yoder poses in front of the leaderboard with the Dayton Chapter MATHCOUNTS coordinator

Lawrence Miller has coached the Bellefontaine MATHCOUNTS team the last five years.

He said, “MATHCOUNTS is enjoyable to teach because not only are the students learning from me, but I’m learning from them. I will go through a problem in our club and then one of the Mathletes will mention another method that I had never thought of.”

Middle school is a critical juncture for encouraging a love of math. Coach Miller puts together fun math games and challenges to help the Mathletes build problem-solving skills and positive attitudes about math, so students embrace challenges and expand their academic and career opportunities for the future.

MATHCOUNTS is an after school club that meets once a week for roughly an hour. Topics in the competition range from algebra, geometry, probability, number theory, and miscellaneous general math.

MATHCOUNTS is only available from 6th to 8th grade. Next season will start after Labor Day.