Ben Shofet, graphics editor 
In their final competition of the year, the Academic Decathlon team (AcaDeca) placed in sixth in the state of California and 11th in the nation at the Sacramento state finals on March 17. The team’s score of 51,511 was second-best in Beverly’s history.

The AcaDeca team placed both nationally and regionally because their accumulated team score was later compared to the rest of the teams in the United States.
“Honestly, we were all really surprised when we saw our team up on the screen for sixth place,” sophomore Sam Schwartz said. “All the teams before us had scored higher in regionals and had scored very high in state in general, so when we saw our result we were really happy.”
According to AcaDeca coach Phil Chase, the team’s improvement from regionals to state finals was “by far the highest by any team in California.”
“We studied at state, and pretty much only stopped studying to sleep or eat. We all worked really hard and I think it paid off in the end,” Schwartz said.
Now that their regular season is over, AcaDeca is focusing on recruitment for their upcoming season.
“We are looking for people of all grades and of all grade point averages, although we are really searching for people of the ‘varsity’ average, or 2.99 GPA or under in the past two years. We really want people to join because it truly is a great program that everyone can take something away from,” Schwartz said.