Earlier in the school year, Jared Rio took on the task of putting together an Academic Decathlon team for Sierra High.

Putting together an academic competition squad had been the long-time hope of Principal Steve Clark, according to Rio, who had experience of organizing Mock Trial when he taught at Kimball High in Tracy, took on the task back in October.

“All the other (Academic Decathlon) teams were already established and it seemed as if we were always playing catchup,” said the Social Science instructor.

Fortunately, Rio was able to muster up 14 students.

They met twice a week for an hour for several months in becoming familiar with the subject areas of Art, Econ, Essay, Interview, Language, Mathematics, Music, Science, Social Science and Speech.

“We started off as a club team along with six other schools,” said Rio, who will go club as well for next year.

To better prepare for the San Joaquin County 2019 Academic Decathlon held last Saturday, he entered his team in a recent scrimmage at the county level.

“This gave us a better idea on the curriculum and the eight different subjects,” Rio added.

During the 38th annual SJCOE event held at Lathrop High, Sierra did better than expected, taking second place in the Club Division, scoring 2,590 in the Super Quiz while tallying a total of 27,458.7.

McNair took first with a total of 29,405.5 (2,240 in the Super Quiz). Escalon was third with 27.126 (2,100 Super Quiz).

Individually, Kaycee Snyder of Sierra took third in Science in Varsity Division – Honors and Scholastic were the other divisions.

Rio will be recognizing members of his team with certificates in the coming weeks.

To contact reporter Vince Rembulat, e-mail vrembulat@mantecabulletin.com.