Allegany County Public Schools middle school students recently competed in the Hagerstown Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition. The MATHCOUNTS Competition is a national middle school competition that aims to build problem-solving skills and foster achievement through four levels of contests.

The Hagerstown Chapter represents all public and parochial middle schools in Washington, Allegany, and Garrett Counties. The top three teams and five of the top six individual students were from ACPS. In the team competition, Braddock Middle School came in first place (8th consecutive and 12th in the past 13 years), Mount Savage Middle School came in second place (2nd consecutive runner-up finish), and Washington Middle School came in third place. Both the Braddock and Mount Savage teams qualified to compete in the State MATHCOUNTS Competition on March 18th at Johns Hopkins University. This is the 33rd time in the past 40 years that Braddock has sent a team to the state competition.

Top individual placements were awarded to: Corinna Hilderbrand -Braddock: 1st Place; Ethan Kwok - Mount Savage: 3rd Place; Preston Glenn - Washington: 4th Place; Kristina Kutcher - Braddock: 5th place; and Jayce McLaughlin - Washington: 6th Place. Those students, along with Madison Cannon - Braddock, Josh Dixon - Washington, William Keiling - Mount Savage, Oliver Michael - Mount Savage, Jackson Spangler - Washington, Ellie Knieriem - Braddock, and Destiny Burgess - Mount Savage all qualify to compete in the state competition.

ACPS coaches for MATHCOUNTS are: Braddock: Ray Short and Kara Breedlove; Washington: Stephan Weisenmiller, and Josh Wilson; and Mount Savage/Westmar: Teresa Norris.