Wilmot Union wins regional contest
By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer
After capturing a regional title at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Jan. 8, Wilmot Union High School’s academic decathlon squad is in pursuit of its third consecutive state championship.
However, standing in the way is Waukesha West, who is 155 points ahead of Wilmot in the state rankings of a possible 60,000 points.
Academic decathlon is a competition composed of ten categories: art, economics, essay, interview, literature, math, music, science, speech and social science.
Wilmot’s academic decathlon coach Don Serkowski said that, unlike the first two state titles, this year will be more difficult.
“The past two years I would have been able to predict which categories for which we would win the state trophy, but this year it’s too close,” he said.
Wilmot, who won last year’s national championship, returns five of its nine competitors with four newcomers.
Returning are senior Carlie Banchi, senior Carl Simmons, junior Joey Burba, senior Angela Schumacher and senior Ashley Dabbs.
New to the team are sophomore Brenna Simmons, sophomore Isaac Bruley, junior Alexa Lewis and junior Kyle Kostreva.
In the regional competition – Wilmot’s sixth straight championship – the team picked a school-record 55 ribbons (of a possible 90).
“The Panther Decathletes handily won the UW–Whitewater regional by over 6,000 points and have earned an automatic berth to the Wisconsin academic decathlon in March,” said Serkowski.
The school took seven of nine spots in the all-regional team for a school record as well, with Carl Simmons, Banchi, Burba, Bruley, Schumacher, Dabbs and Kostrova making the cut.
“The team totally swept the varsity division,” Serkowski said.
The squad has a short time to savor the regional victory, with more work to be done in on March 3-4, when they take on Waukesha West in pursuit of another national title appearance, which will be in April in Alaska.
“The state finals held in March will be very competitive,” Serkowski said. “It was Wilmot’s sixth consecutive regional win, propelling them to the school’s 12th consecutive state competition.”
Wilmot is the only school in Kenosha County to appear at a national competition, he said.
See the full story in the Jan. 22 print edition of the Twin Lakes Report