The Pelican Rapids junior high math team won the fifth and final Minnesota State Junior High School Mathematics League meet, finishing second overall for the season.

The team exam was the deciding factor. Pelican Rapids tied with Marshall and Alexandria for first place on the team test, which gave Pelican Rapids the overall meet victory. It was the Vikings’ second first-place finish of the season.

Zayne Schulte earned a perfect score on Test B, the only student in the West Central region to do so. Schulte tied for third place individually at the meet and tied for 10th place for the season.

Kinzley McKeag and Graham Tollerud each missed just one question on Test B to tie for third place on that exam. On Test A, Winnie Gray missed only one question to tie for second place.

After the two individual tests, Pelican Rapids led Marshall by six points and Alexandria by eight points.

Both McKeag and Schulte earned medals for finishing in the top 10 for the season. Tollerud finished 13th overall for the year, and Ryah Munick finished among the top 25 competitors.

A separate Pelican Rapids Orange team finished 12th overall for the season.

The Pelican Rapids High School Math Team needed a first-place finish and a four-point edge over Henning at Monday’s final regular season meet to secure a third consecutive Section 6A championship and state bid. The Vikings delivered exactly that at M-State Fergus Falls.

The team amassed 57 points in Meet 5, which was good for 1st place in the section. Henning and Nevis tied for 2nd place with 53 points. In 4th place was Breckenridge with 50 points. In season summary, despite being in 4th place after Meet 1, Pelican Rapids climbed back to 1st place and will be competing in the MSHSML State Tournament on Monday, March 16.

The Vikings also compete against Moorhead, Fergus Falls, and Alexandria in the regular season—similar to “conference play—as part of the West Central Division. 

Impressively, Pelican finished in 3rd place in this race, besting Moorhead, Northern Cass, Breckenridge, and Henning. They fell short of Alexandria (1st) and Fergus Falls (2nd) for the regular season.

The individual standout for the Pelican Rapids season has been senior Oliver Snavely. He scored 40 points for the team during the regular season, which is ranked 1st overall in Section 6A and 9th overall in the West Central Division. 

Two other stand-out seniors were Allie Thompson and Jadon Peterson; they both scored 22 points, even though they each competed in just four meets. 

Overall, what really helped get the Vikings to state was the well-rounded group, which created good team scores every meet.