Student Standouts for May 26, 2023

Student Standouts: Ellenhorn ’24, Davis ’24, Starks ’24, Boon ’25, Poojari ’25, Makkapati ’25, Malhotra ’25, Villagomez ’25, Day ’30, Doorstep Donations, Math Team, PERIOD & Girl Up, Baseball, Boys Lacrosse, Girls Lacrosse, Boys Tennis, Track & Field, 8th Grade Boys Lacrosse, 7th & 8th Grade Girls Lacrosse

Congratulations to this week’s standouts below. Way to go #RamNation! And as always, if you have a story to share, please email weeklynews@micds.org.


 

Rams Selected for Missouri State Program

Sam Ellenhorn ’24 was selected for the 2023 Missouri Boys State program, and Chloe Davis ’24 and Genesis Starks ’24 have been selected to participate in the 2023 Missouri Girls State program, a week-long program held from June 24 to July 1 for students who have completed their junior year. The program gives participants an opportunity to help create and participate in a fictional government to better understand how government works at all levels. Over the course of the week, students will learn from people who work in all levels of government and gain interesting networking opportunities.

Participants have the opportunity to learn about and gain firsthand experience with campaigning and political operations, commerce, education, international affairs, journalism and media, law, law enforcement, legislative and executive policy, and local government and policy. According to program details, these week-long programs “operate as non-partisan ‘learn-by-doing’ leadership programs, emphasizing the importance of citizens’ rights and responsibilities and public service in a democratic form of government through real-world simulations. Participants run for political offices; create city, county, and state governments; form businesses; and learn life-changing lessons from an all-volunteer staff of top political, legal, military, education, and business leaders from throughout the United States.”
Congratulations, Sam, Chloe, Genesis, and Ava (Ava was mentioned last week).

Two Rising Juniors to Attend Hugh O'Brien Young Leaders Program

This summer, Ian Boon ’25 and Amisha Poojari ’25 will be attending HOBY, the Hugh O’Brien Young Leaders Program. HOBY Missouri offers a seminar at Webster University from June 9-11. According to their website, the seminar “is designed to help high school sophomores recognize their leadership talents and apply them to become effective, ethical leaders in their home, school, workplace, and community. Selected students attend our three-day seminar where they participate in hands-on leadership activities, meet leaders in their state, and explore their own personal leadership skills – all while learning how to lead others and make a positive impact in their community. The seminar curriculum develops leadership from three perspectives: Personal Leadership, Group Leadership, and Leadership for Society.”

Student to Attend Missouri Leadership Seminar

Diya Makkapati ’25 is attending the Missouri Leadership Seminar this summer. The seminar takes place June 2-4 at the University of Central Missouri. According to the MLS website, “Missouri Leadership Seminar is an unforgettable weekend experience that immerses a select group of high school sophomores in an environment that brings out their inner leaders. Student ambassadors are exposed to panels of professional speakers on many of today’s most pressing issues, are encouraged to express their unique opinions in a supportive environment, and learn to lead through team-building activities.”

Two Rams to Participate in Missouri Scholars Academy

Congratulations to Yash Malhotra ’25 and Grace Villagomez ’25 who will be attending Missouri Scholars Academy over the summer! According to their website, “Missouri Scholars Academy is a three-week residential program for 330 of Missouri’s academically gifted students who are ready to begin their junior year of high school. The Academy is held each June on the campus of the University of Missouri and administered by the University of Missouri Honors College. The Academy reflects Missouri’s desire to strive for excellence in education at all levels. The program is based on the premise that Missouri’s gifted youth must be provided with special opportunities for learning and personal development in order for them to realize their full potential.” This year’s academy takes place June 11-July 1.

Ryen Day '30 Shares More About Doodle for Google on Fox 2

As shared last week, we were thrilled to honor Ryen Day ’30 for being the Missouri Winner in the Doodle for Google Contest. This week, she was featured on FOX 2 St. Louis in the segment below, sharing about the competition, how she entered after her Middle School Visual Art Teacher Jayme Zimmer encouraged her to, and discussing how to vote so that Ryen can move on in the national competition (voting ended Thursday, May 25)! Way to go, Ryen!

Doorstep Donations Successfully Finishes Another Year at MICDS

By Zoe Zlatic ’24, Co-Head of Doorstep Donations

The Doorstep Donations program has been at MICDS for three years. Through this program, donor families in the MICDS community purchase small amounts of food each time they go to the store, which are then delivered by student drivers five times a year to our partner food pantry, the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. Thanks to our MICDS donor families and student drivers, MICDS has been able to provide countless meals and make a significant impact on food insecurity in and around the St. Louis area.

Chloe Cheng ’23 showed her appreciation for Doorstep Donations: “I love helping out with Doorstep Donations! I’m glad things went smoothly this year. It is wonderful seeing how people love to help and support the organization!”

Looking to next year, the Doorstep Donations chapter will continue to run at MICDS and partner with the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. There are two new co-heads who will be filling the roles of the graduated seniors. Charlie Fischer ’24, new driver communication leader, says that he hopes we “make an even larger impact on our community than we did this year for Doorstep Donations.” Devon Catsavis ’24, family communication, was a student driver this past year but wanted to be even more involved in Doorstep Donations this year as a co-head. She says, “I’m super excited to be co-head and continue working for such an amazing cause! I had a lot of fun volunteering this year and really enjoyed seeing how many families participated in our collections every week. We were able to make a huge impact and I can’t wait to help more by communicating with parents and recruiting new families and student drivers to make our impact even bigger next year!”

We thank everyone who made this year’s success possible, and we are looking forward to another year of combating food insecurity through service and collaboration! We will send out links as soon as school starts in August for families to sign up to be donors and Upper School students to be drivers for the 2023-2024 school year.

If you have any questions or just want to know more about the program, please reach out to Devon (dcatsavis@micds.org), Charlie (cfischer@micds.org), or myself (zzlatic@micds.org), co-heads for the 2023-2024 school year, or Erin Hamill (ehamill@micds.org), faculty sponsor.

Six Rams Compete in National Math League Competition

On Saturday, May 20, six MICDS students (Henry Clay ’24, Jason Song ’25, Andrew Haas ’25, Sophie Yokoo ’25, Ellie Reardon ’25, and Karthik Krishnaswamy ’26) competed in the National Math League Competition online from school. Of the 50 high school teams that competed, MICDS placed 14th overall. Clay, Song, and Haas placed 7th on the power question—a college-level mathematics problem set over an undisclosed topic on which a team of up to six students has one hour to work out solutions, including computational work and proofs. This year’s power question was a combinatorics question on tiling patterns. The competition was a great way to round out a successful Math Team season.

PERIOD and Girl Up Gather Over 1,700 Items for the St. Louis Alliance for Periods

By Nina Schuerer ’25, Head of PERIOD

At last week’s Period Drive, we collected 698 tampons, 637 pads, and 370 panty liners for a grand total of 1,705 period products! All of the products are benefitting the St. Louis Alliance for Period Supplies, and this drive was our way of combating period poverty one step at a time.

On behalf of both Girl Up and Period, Claire Giokas ’25 [Head of Girl Up] and I would like to thank the entire community for their generous donations and for supporting this cause that really isn’t talked about enough. Even if we hadn’t collected anything, it is one of our major goals to create awareness and take up space, which this drive really did.

Generally, it was so great to team up for this drive and have so many people dedicated to the cause. We really had everyone working like a well-oiled machine, and it showed the value of teamwork in projects like this.

Boys Baseball All-Conference Accolades

Congratulations to the following baseball players for their All-Conference awards:

  • Co-Conference Player of the Year: Jack Rollo ’23
  • First Team All-Conference: Henry Cordes ’24, Eric Podgorny ’23, and Brian Gould ’25
  • Second Team All-Conference: Andrew Clifford ’24, Cameron Cooper ’25, and LJ Triplett ’26
  • Honorable Mention: Jack Mills ’23

Way to go, Rams!

Boys Lacrosse Advances to State Cup for 8th Consecutive Year

Boys Lacrosse is in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for their semifinal victory against SLUH on May 23, 15-4. Brin Lewis ’23 scored four goals, Graham Faust ’26 scored two, Willy Carpenter ’24 scored two, Steele Crissman ’26 scored two, and five other players scored one goal apiece.

The Rams will be participating in the State Cup for the eighth straight season. They’ll take on DeSmet on Friday at 7 p.m. at Lindenwood University. Check out this article for a preview of the game and for a highlight on Brin who has made a strong return to play after an injury in March. Coach Andy Kay also talks about the match on Scoops with Danny Mac here. Let’s go Rams!

Girls Lacrosse Advances to Semifinals for 11th Consecutive Year

Girls Lacrosse advanced to the state semi-final round for the 11th consecutive year, thanks to a walk-off goal by Madison Sineff ’24. Caroline Koman ’25 scored six goals in the 14-13 win over St. Joseph’s Academy, and Amelia Mackin ’26 scored four. Read all about the exciting game in this recap from Metro Sports STL.

The team played hard in Thursday night’s semi-final game but ultimately fell to the Eureka Wildcats 9-7. They’ll play for 3rd place on Saturday, May 27, at 10 a.m. at John Burroughs School. Go Rams!

Boys Tennis has Impressive Showing at State

Jai Patel ’25 and Owen Kizer ’26 competed in the Class 2 Doubles State Finals on Friday, May 19 at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield, Missouri. They came back from being down a set and 1-4 in the semifinals against Westminster to win in a match tiebreaker to reach the Championship match. They were defeated by Ladue, 2-6 and 6-7, in the final. Check out photos from their match here.  Arjun Puri ’25 played in singles at State for 5th place. Puri finished the season 22-3. Go Rams!

Record Breaking at Sectional Track & Field Meet

At Track & Field Sectionals last weekend, several Rams broke School records. Congratulations to the following student-athletes:

  • Maya Anderson ’23 broke the school record in the Triple Jump with a jump of 12.25m which beats the previous record held by Maya with a jump of 39-08.50 (12.10m) at the Arcadia Invitational earlier this year.
  • Tristan Williams ’24 broke the school record in the 400 Meter Run with a time of 49.08. This beats the previous record held by Novo Onovwerosuoke ’22 set in 2022 with a time of 49.66.
  • Steven Hall ’23, Jeremiah Clay ’24, Henry Rohan ’26, and Winston Moore ’23 broke the school record in the 4×100 Meter Relay. The previous school record was 42.98 held by David Allen ’00, Mike Malan ’98, Steve Pelligreen ’99, and Johnathan Reese ’98 in 1998, which was previously our oldest record in the record book.

Several Rams also qualified for State, which takes place May 26 and 27. Go Rams!

Middle School Lacrosse Champions

On Saturday, May 14, the MICDS 8th Grade Boys Lacrosse team played in the Missouri Scholastic Lacrosse Association (MSLA) end-of-season tournament in a league made up of about 15 neighboring schools. They took first place by beating Chaminade 7-6 in the final championship game! The boys’ coaches are alumni Justin O’Connor ’07Henry Hollo ’11, and Tanner Amell.

The MICDS combined 7th and 8th Grade Girls Lacrosse Team qualified based on their St. Louis Youth Lacrosse Association (SLYLA) season record to play for the SLYLA League Championship, which took place on Sunday, May 21. They were undefeated going into the tournament and won the championship by beating the Lou Fusz Premier Team 14-8! The girls’ coaches are alumna Mollie Schmid ’18 and Ruth Rainey.