Feb. 28, 2020

Teams excel at Odyssey of the Mind event

Two Upper St. Clair Odyssey of the Mind teams earned first place finishes, two placed second and three placed third in the Western Pennsylvania Odyssey's Spontaneous Fun Day tournament on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, at Linton Middle School in the Penn Hills School District.

First Place

• Upper St. Clair High School, Division 3: Joseph Markovitz, Eric Wang, Max Murtough, Brianna Lin, Victoria Cuba, Sammie Seewald and Constantine Tripodes; Coached by Laura Murtough, Stacey Seewald and Meridith Markovitz
• Boyce Middle School, Division 1B: Madeleine Thomas, Daniyal Badruddin, Ava Liu, Preston McLeod, Felix Drutis, Ian Putorti and Ryan Katukota; Coached by Yesha Gandhi and Mandy Thomas

Second Place

• Fort Couch Middle School, Division 2A: Esha Lathia, Peter Markovitz, Ben Murtough, Ben Seewald, Anastasia Gzikowski and John Tripodes; Coached by Meridith Markovitz, Stacey Seewald and Laura Murtough
• Boyce Middle School, Division 1A: Team: Leela Kulkarni, Olivia Murphy, Yaqoot Zalloum, Saara Iyer and Sahana Senthil; Coached by Soumya Rao and Rema Yaqoot 

Third Place

• Upper St. Clair High School, Division 3: Jacob Conte, Isabella Putorti, Gracie Lowden and Josilyn Seftchick; Coached by Rachel Lowden and Beatrice Conte
• Boyce Middle School, Division 2A: Kurt Baran, Henry Ginsburg, Ayan Amin, Geneva Eisinger, Lauren Ginsburg and Zahra Hossain; Coached by Nate Eisinger and Artie Baran
• Boyce Middle School, Division 1A: Alex Perenic, Grace McDonough, Molly Biedrzycki, Milena Casciani and Catalina Ramirez; Coached by Katie Talarico and Christina Casciani

In total, there are 18 Upper St. Clair Odyssey of the Mind teams, representing all six district schools, for 2020 – 11 of which participated in the Spontaneous Fun Day tournament. Each team was given four problems to solve.

“Problems are only revealed to the team when they enter the competition room. This challenges students to think on their feet and make decisions under pressure,” Laura Murtough, USC Odyssey of the Mind coordinator, said. “Fun Day is a great opportunity for teams to experience competition before the Regional Tournament on March 7.”

Teams are judged on the creativity of their solutions, teamwork, and (in the case of a hands-on problem) mathematical measures such as height, width and amount of weight a structure can hold. The nature of a spontaneous problem varies, but it can be categorized into three common types: verbal, verbal hands-on or hands-on.

The Western PA Odyssey of the Mind Regional Tournament will be held on Saturday, March 7, 2020, at Keystone Oaks High School/Middle School.