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Guintu to lead NMI MathCourt team
Frederic Dean Michael Guintu, with trophy, joins the other participants of last month’s CNMI-wide MathCourt competition. Guintu will be leading Team CNMI in the nationals next month in San Francisco. (Contributed Photo)
Frederic Dean Michael Guintu will be leading the CNMI MathCourt team’s campaign in next month’s national competition in San Francisco. He and two other students from Agape Christian School—Quing Yuan Wang and Da Wei Cai—swept the Top 3 positions in the CNMI-Wide MathCout competition held last Jan. 30.
Grace Christian Academy’s Harry Noh, who is also part of GCA’s 14th Annual CNMI Academic Challenge Bowl champion team, is the fourth member of the CNMI MathCourt squad that’s going to the nationals.
ACS’ Duojia Yu is an alternate along with Victoria Santos, Seongbeom Song, and Ki Chang Jeoung of Marianas Baptist Academy. Team CNMI held their first practice last Feb. 6 and will have their last practice this Saturday, Feb. 27.
This will be Guintu’s fifth straight time to compete in the nationals as his previous three were in elementary. This is his second time as a middle-schooler since he was part of Team CNMI in last year’s tournament in Houston, Texas.
Guintu, whose father Frederick Guintu is ACS’ mathematics teacher and coach, also qualified for the Scripps Regional Spelling Bee in Guam but he chose MathCouth since the competition will be held the same day on March 6.
He said that there’s always been pressure from his father, a licensed mechanical engineer, being the teacher and coach but he has learned to take it as a challenge rather than be distracted. It pushed him to study harder and do his best in every competition.
He advised his teammates to prepare hard for the nationals. “I’m not really nervous. It’s fun to always go to the nationals, the competition is hard that’s why we need to study hard and prepare for the problems. Just enjoy the competition.”
It was Wang’s first time to compete and he already earned the chance to go to the nationals while Cai booked a ticket after his fourth try.
“I started competing in the MathCourt in the fourth grade. This is my first time to win individually that’s why I’m eager and ready to do my share in the nationals. I always win in the team event,” said Cai, who again helped ACS to win the team event. Guintu, Wang, and Yu joined Cai on Team ACS.
MBA—Santos, Jeoung, Keving Song, and Stephen Bartolo—settled for the silver, while Saipan Community School’s Shan Nan Xie, Seung Ju Lee, and Mark Nam finished third in the team events.
