When freshman Siva Muthupalaniappan nervously walked into his first math team practice, he was greeted by the members of the math team chanting, “Freshman!” After that, his nerves as a freshman virtually disappeared.

According to Muthupalaniappan, members chanted that to all of the freshmen on the first day of practice to be funny. Other than that occasion, age does not make a difference in math team practices or competitions.

During math team practice, students often work together to solve problems. When freshman Catherine Mei told her teammates she found a problem to be really difficult, various other team members nodded in agreement and provided her with suggestions for how to solve the problem.

“[There is] a lot of interest in the freshman level, a lot of interest and a lot of talent,” Steve Goodman, head math team advisor, said.

According to Brad Benson, assistant math team coach, there are currently four freshmen who have competed in the freshman level and sophomore levels during math competitions. But Muthupalaniappan has competed in all grade levels.

According to Mei, in the most recent competition, she and two other freshmen received perfect scores in the freshman and sophomore level competitions.

“Our team was very happy to get a perfect score on the freshman and sophomore contests, especially the sophomore contest since it is usually very hard,” Mei said.

According to Benson, the team gets along well, and the age difference is never a problem. If it ever is, it goes away as he hands them math problems.

“It’s cool for them to have other people who are really interested in math and who are also capable at math all together,” Benson said.