Greencastle adds two more Academic Super Bowl titles

Monday, May 9, 2022
Claiming the 10th interdisciplinary Academic Super Bowl state title in school history for Greencastle High School on Saturday is the team of (from left) Nicole Burkhalter (English coach), Andrew Thede, Alice Howard, Rain Minartz, Stephen Dombrowski, Casey Crary, Gayle Hansen (math coach) and Brad Kingma (science coach).
Courtesy photo

The theme of this year’s Indiana Academic Super Bowl was Canada, but after this year’s state championships, they should be singing “O Greencastle, our true and native land.”

This after Greencastle High School brought home two more state titles from Purdue University on Saturday, the Class 3 championships in both science and interdisciplinary.

With at least one title in every year there was a competition since 2013, GHS ran its record of state titles to 33, still three ahead of second-place West Lafayette, which claimed the Class 2 championship in math.

Also competing in the state finals for GHS, the math team placed third on a tiebreaker.

The paths to the titles were a bit different for the two title-winning Greencastle teams, as Brad Kingma, who coached both teams, noted.

The GHS science team of (from left) coach Brad Kingma, Jonah Kaiser, Stephen Dombrowski, Blake Pingleton and Casey Crary claimed the eighth science title in school history, running the school total of titles to 33 overall.
Courtesy photo

The science team of Casey Crary, Stephen Dombrowski, Jonah Kaiser and Blake Pingleton, got off to a fast start.

“We got the first 14 questions right and had a two-question lead,” Kingma said, “and then we missed back-to-back questions.”

That brought GHS back to a first-place tie that would have resulted in a tiebreaker loss had the score held.

“But we did not miss any more questions,” Kingma noted.

Lakeland High School placed second.

It was the second consecutive science title for GHS.

Interdisciplinary — composed of Crary, Dombrowski, Alice Howard, Rain Minartz and Andrew Thede — got off to a rockier start, missing two of the first four questions.

“But then they went on a very long streak,” Kingma said, noting that the team missed just one more question of the remaining 21. “And it’s hard to get that many questions in interdisciplinary because each team member is on their own.”

The team wound up winning by two over second-place Boone Grove.

Kingma, who is considered the coach of the interdisciplinary team, gave credit to the coaches of Greencastle’s math, English, social studies and fine arts teams for preparing their students who were part of the team.

He also credited the students and their preparation.

“Both the science and interdisciplinary team had some good practices after the area contest,” Kingma said. “We were anticipating some questions. The very last question in science, I basically gave them that question and said, ‘It’s going to be this.’ The way the tiebreakers work, if you miss the very last question, you’re going to lose. So we knew we had it cinched before the answer was even revealed.”

That preparation goes back further, as Kingma noted earlier that the science team members realized with a week to go until the April 19 area competition that they were not ready.

So they used that last week to buckle down, advance to state and, ultimately, win a second consecutive title.

Finishing third at the Academic Super Bowl state finals is the Greencastle High School math team of (from left) Alice Howard, Ty Ishikawa, captain Casey Crary and coach Gayle Hansen.
Courtesy photo

While math had a more disappointing day, the team of Crary, Howard and Ty Ishikawa still performed quite well in finishing third.

“Math was right in it ‘til the last question,” coach Gayle Hansen said. “If we had gotten that question right we would have won. We placed third instead of second based on the third tiebreaker, which is how many consecutive questions we got right. At one point in the last half we took the lead for a question and then missed the next question and dropped down to third on tiebreakers.”

Though she did not have a team in the finals on Saturday, much of Greencastle’s success over the years should also be attributed to English coach Nicole Burkhalter, who concluded her 25th year as an Academic Super Bowl coach.

During that run, Burkhalter’s English teams won six consecutive state titles from 2013-2018.

In all, Greencastle’s 33 titles since 1990 include six in English, two in fine arts, five in math, eight in science, two in social studies and 10 in interdisciplinary.

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  • Congratulations on this accomplishment! Great record!

    -- Posted by infiremanemt on Tue, May 10, 2022, at 9:11 AM
  • Congrats Greencastle Students!

    -- Posted by Area 30 Career Center on Thu, May 12, 2022, at 9:22 AM
  • Keeping the tradition alive and strong! Congrats to all involved--students, coaches and parents.

    -- Posted by gustave&zelma on Mon, May 16, 2022, at 1:58 PM
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