Earning 39,821 points, Bingham’s Academic Decathlon team won the State tournament held in St. George on March 14-15. The Miners won over 69 medals in the subject areas of the competition that, this year, centered on WWI.

Coached by Scott Crump, Tom Herret, and Jimmy Barton, the team consisted of Joel Howarth, Jay Rollins, Winston Hilton and Tanner Harrison in the Honors Division; Parker Mortensen, Terrell Baker, Jared McArthur and Austin LaBonty in the Scholastic Division; and Austin Andersen, Holly Bennett and Austen Wade in the Varsity Division.

Last year at State when the decathaletes lost, Jay turned to Winston and Austen Wade and said, “Next year, we’re going to win.” Building up the new team for this year required a lot of preparation, which included practicing interviews, reciting speeches, writing essays, and studying material.

Joel was the top scholar for Bingham’s team, scoring 8,790 points and winning 13 medals. Parker was the highest scoring decathlete in his division with 10 medals and 6,756 points. The top varsity scholars were Austin Andersen and Holly Bennett. Austin Andersen won 8 medals and tallied 5,534 points and Holly won 7 medals and tallied 5,418 points.

Bingham’s alternates Austin LaBonty and Tanner Harrison also scored well. Austin LaBonty scored a perfect 1,000 on his speech, and Tanner scored 6,845 points.

As the Utah State Academic Decathlon champions, the Miners will represent the state of Utah at the national contest in Honolulu, Hawaii in April.