The Woodbridge Academic Decathlon team competed in the 39th Annual California Academic Decathlon competition in Sacramento from March 22 through March 25 and finished 13th place in the Division 1, the most competitive division in the most competitive state in the nation. This finish places Woodbridge in the top 20 in the entire country.
Over the four-day event, the team competed against the top 69 schools in the state in a series of 10 academic events, ranging from mathematics to social science to speech and interview, all revolving around this year’s theme of Africa.
“Heading into the state competition, the team set realistic goals of improving on our team score from the county competition,” said Decathlon Coach Shan Wu. “Our team improved individual scores and had the highest State Competition score of all Orange County schools that advanced to state. Due to the hard work and commitment of Woodbridge team members, we were able to achieve these goals!”
This year, there were five Orange County schools invited to the state competition, and they finished with these overall rankings in the state, out of 69 teams:
- 13th – Woodbridge, Irvine
- 15th – Westminster
- 25th – University, Irvine
- 27th – Valencia
- 29th – Trabuco Hills
Woodbridge Team Members include junior captain Hannah Hui; senior Daniel Kang; juniors Sachin Pathuri, Matthew Ho, JP Faza, Connie Pak, and Sugnan Suresh. The team has been preparing since last June.
The following Woodbridge team members placed individually:
- Hannah Hui - 2nd Art; 3rd Music; 2nd Science; Overall highest scoring team member on our team
- Matthew Ho - 3rd Music; 3rd Math; 3rd Science; 2nd - Social Science
- Sachin Pathuri - 3rd Art; 2nd Social Science