by Melissa Kerwin
On May 18th the Almonte and District High School Reach for the Top team travelled to the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus to participate in the provincial championship, after winning their division in Renfrew County.
The team, which is led by teacher and coach Melissa Kerwin, is made up of grade 12 students Mack Chapman, Dennis Prokopovich and Riley Sweeney, and grade 11 students Finn O’Brien, and Madeleine Poirier.
This was the first time Almonte High School has gone to provincials since 1991. The team placed 14th of 40. At first 14th place doesn’t seem high, but when you look at the size of the schools that made it to this competition, it was stellar. Most of the schools had more than 1600 high school students. We only have 300. Many schools were private, gifted or had extensive gifted programs. To put it into sports perspective we were the best single A school competing with triple A and quadruple A schools, and we placed in the top third. I like to think of it as 14th or 909 because there are 909 high schools in Ontario.
Mack Chapman said, “It feels great to be among an elite status of schools for an event like this. The competition was exciting and playing more difficult schools is always a pleasure. It was a little different format of game than we have played at regionals before, but we picked up the concept quickly and were successful. The highlight of the competition was probably either our 200 point victory in our last game.
Mrs. Kerwin and the team would like to thank a number of local organizations and community members donated to the team and without whom the team would not have been able to attend: The Hub, Levi’s Home Hardware, Almonte Dental Clinic, Bread’n Butter Bakery and Fine Foods, Brian Tackaberry, Alliance Coin and Banknote, JR’s Family Restaurant, Mississippi Mills Musicworks, Palms Coffee Shop, Almonte Civitan Club, and the ADHS staff and students.
