The McLean Highlander Math League (MHML) recently championed the Virginia Mathematics League, a series of six math competitions spanning across the school year. With a cumulative score of 173 out of 180, the MHML narrowly defeated W.T. Woodson High School by two points — the first time McLean scored higher than Woodson this season. Freshman Kalan Warusa and sophomore Daniel Kim were the highest scoring competitors out of over a hundred students.

“Woodson was beating us the whole year but we had a last test comeback,” Kim said. “It felt great — last year I was 10th [highest scoring], so I improved a lot.”

WIth the Virginia Mathematics League season wrapping up, the MHML is looking forward to their next competition, the American Regions Mathematics League (ARML). The ARML combines teams from schools in the region who placed in the top 10 teams in the ARML local. The MHML qualified for the competition through collaborating with Langley High School’s math team.

“We are going to team up with other students in the Fairfax region and TJHSST comes as their own school,” Kim said. “It’s practically an alliance system and we try to beat TJHSST.”

With high hopes, The MHML will head to Penn State University for the ARML on June 1.

“The math league has joined many competitions this year that we didn’t do last year,” MHML president Aiden Feyerherm said. “We hope that our team can win or place among the top in our division at ARML.”