Montini Catholic’s math team scoring big this season

Montini Catholic's math team members are enjoying their competition season — all leading up to the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics State Competition in April.

The team recently competed in the Lemont Invitational (Jan. 28) and the Math Teachers Association Invitational at Loyola University's Lakeshore Campus on Jan. 31.

Celebrating Perfect Individual Papers, obtaining maximum possible scores, at the Lemont Invitational are junior Naomi Tang (Algebra 2) and senior Zion Yang (precalculus).

The Bronco Mathletes also secured a first-place finish with their junior-senior two-person team of juniors Gavin Conway and Naomi Tang and with their PreCalc Team, team members: seniors Chailyn Lyu, Zion Yang, Andrew Sparke and Charlie Paciga; and juniors Michael Pivoney and Gavin Conway.

In addition to their blue ribbon finishes, the Broncos congratulated their freshman-sophomore eight-person team for their second-place finish and their geometry and calculator teams on their third-place achievements.

Overall, the mathletes took third place (just shy of one point for the second place ranking) in the Lemont Invitational (out of 20 teams).

During the MTA Invitational, the Broncos enjoyed an overall third place ranking with individual placement finishes by junior Gavin Conway (5th), senior Zion Yang (6th) and junior Naomi Tang (8th).

The 2026 Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics State Math Finals for high school students are scheduled for Saturday, April 18, at Illinois State University.

The regional contests leading up to this event will take place on Saturday, Feb. 28. Montini's team celebrated a sixth-place finish last spring.

“Montini is one of only two teams, and the only Catholic team in Division 2A to qualify for the state meet for the past 24 consecutive years,” said Chrissy McManus, math team moderator and math department chair. “Additionally, they finished in the Top 10 for 23 of those years (and was No. 11 once).”