Middle School celebrates milestones

With the seventh and eighth grade girls basketball team winning the Harpeth Valley Athletic Conference championship, the combined swim team setting multiple records, and our Mathcounts team turning in a stellar performance, February was a championship month in USN’s Middle School.
By Joel Bezaire, Head of Middle School

February was Championship Month in USN’s Middle School. I want to take this opportunity to honor some of our high-performing students, teams, and coaches.

First, our Mathcounts team competed on Saturday, February 7, at Vanderbilt University’s Engineering and Science building and placed third overall:
  1. Central Magnet
  2. Meigs Magnet
  3. USN
  4. Montgomery Bell Academy
This marks only the second time USN has placed ahead of the boys’ school “friendly rival” from down the road, matching a close second-place finish to a homeschooled group 15-20 years ago. Congratulations to our competitors, coached so ably by Assistant Head of Middle School for Academics, Brittany Iams.

Additionally, Lucas Lupu ’31 placed third overall in the individual competition and will represent USN at the state-level Mathcounts competition. Congrats, Lucas! Additionally, Zoey Wei '31 placed in the top ten scores (8th place), and given that both Lucas and Zoey are 7th graders returning to compete next year, there is a lot of optimism in the air for our 2027 Mathcounts team! Our team score was also buoyed by top-20 performances from Isaiah Ng ’30 (18th) and Taylor Tyska ’30 (19th).

In more math news, we’ve wrapped up our school-level Perennial Math competition. Perennial offers a contest per month for four months, and sums the scores of the four rounds for a final score. The following students placed “Top 5” in their grade levels overall and will get a chance to compete for USN in a regional competition in April:

5th Grade
Stanley Whelan
Aaron Wilson
Sajan Dandamudi
Ford Hale
Zaid Umatiya
6th Grade
Keshav Parikh
Win Nelson
Samuel Jewett
Jessica Huo
Lucas Munoz
7th Grade
Lucus Lupu
Zoey Wei
Lucas Roschke
Neel Sinha
Elliott Karpinos
8th Grade
Lucy Garrison
Syra Bangalore 
Saveen Bangalore
Reya Roy
Barry Chen

All of the above students were placed on the national “Wall of Fame” during one of the rounds of the competition based on a nationally ranking high score. Other students achieving “Wall of Fame” status besides all of our grade-level top five performers were Sammy Segall ’33, Andres Mery ’33, Quinn VandeWater ’33, Aiden Park ’33, Maya Gupta ’33, Everett Huffman ’33, Aria Webber ’33, Zoe Tanquilut ’32, Hayes Shallenberger ’32, Arthur Tift ’32, Hudson Unger ’32, Sparsh Shah ’32, Brody Terker ’32, Cora Mashburn ’32, Anisha Nachnani ’32, Adella Schwartz ’32, Elaina Yu ’32, Ellie Exnicious ’31, and Anand Pastakia ’30.

The day after Mathcounts, our swimmers convened to compete in a rescheduled-from-the-ice-storm-debacle Harpeth Valley Athletic Conference championship. Both our boys' and girls' teams placed second overall, but their combined efforts led to a combined HVAC championship. Congrats to all of the swimmers and MS Swim Coach Syd Lindblom with her staff of Clair Green, Brent Crosby, Lindsey Bachman, and Anthony Wokasch.

Over the course of this swim season, our swimmers set a number of school records. A usual measure of success in swimming is “PRs” (personal records), and of course, many were set this year. But we had almost too many Middle School school records to list:

40 Freestyle: Peter Weiss ’30, 20.34
80 Freestyle: Peter Weiss ’30, 45.44
200 Freestyle: Peter Weiss ’30, 1:57.82
500 Freestyle: Peter Weiss ’30, 5:08.90
40 Backstroke: Ian Drewry ’30, 23.59
40 Butterfly: Peter Weiss ’30, 22.82
160 Individual Medley: Peter Weiss ’30, 1:56.06
200 Individual Medley: Sam Womer ’31, 2:16.81

They were also joined by Elliott Karpinos ’31 and Griffin Johnson ’31 in various combinations to set school marks in the following relays: 160 Freestyle, 160 Medley, 200 Freestyle, 200 Medley, and 400 Freestyle.

Not to be outdone by our swimmers, our 7th and 8th grade Varsity Girls Basketball team rolled into Franklin Road Academy on Thursday, February 12, and defeated Valor Collegiate in the HVAC finals by the dominating final score of 38-16 to claim the HVAC Championship. This Tigers team was a remarkably resilient crew who went through some coaching adjustments mid-season due to some bereavement leave, and through flexibility, teamwork, and so much talent, found a way to come out on top. Thanks to all of the coaches who helped throughout the season: Ken Humphrey, Karsten Olson, Nicole Jules, Kanitha Pope, Doug Brown, Michael Scrutchin, Takiyah Goff, and Karen Booker.

Finally, while there are no HVAC Cheerleading championships, Middle School Counselor Randi Days has helped elevate our 7th and 8th-grade cheerleading team to an elite squad in this city and region. They’re the HVAC champions for cheerleading in our hearts, make no mistake.

What do I love most about these results? I love that we bring teams to ALL of these competitions that look representative of our entire student body, and not just a specific subset. I love that our Mathcounts top performers and our Perennial Math top performers had some different names on each list, and it wasn’t just the same small group of students. I love that we have Mathletes who are setting swimming records, winning HVAC championships, and cheering on our teams. I love that many of these students also thrive as artists and performers. 

We have a lot to be proud of as an institution. Most of all, though, we are privileged to be so, so proud of our students. Way to go, Tigers!
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University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.