The Wildcat Roar » Top Stories

Poli Sci Team Makes Ninth in the Nation

jakegrimes — Fri, 07 May 2010 14:38:22 +0000

The political science team of Westminster Christian Academy received ninth place in the nation. This is a very prestigious accomplishment since in the eleven consecutive years Westminster has made it to nationals this is only the third team to make top ten.
“Top ten is a huge deal. It is a goal of every team at nationals to make top ten. There is really no other competition like this, and it is great to finally prove to the Westminster community what hard work we do,” said Molly Anderson, senior.
“A lot of people think we just goof off since we don’t seem to put their classes first on our priorities. The thing is, when you have an opportunity to wow some of the greatest political thinkers when you’re in D.C., it’s really worth so much more than a couple of homework or test grades,” said Sarah Johnson, senior.
The group of seniors in this class left on April twenty-third. They competed on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth. Sunday night was the night when they would find out if they would compete on the following day. Excitement was running high at the mall party that was held Sunday night. Students from the fifty states, District of Columbia, and the Northern Mariana Islands were dancing and letting loose after a grueling two days of competition. However this good comradery ended at nine o’clock when the top ten finalists were announced. The dance floor became silent, and the announcer started proclaiming the names of schools that would be competing the following day where the students would then field eleven-minute sections of follow-up questions about their assigned subject. New Jersey, Virginia, and California were called. In no time only one spot remained. The Westminster students hung their heads in defeat thinking that they had not accomplished the possible.
“I honestly didn’t think we were going to get top ten at that point,” said Ken Boesch, political science coach.
“When they announced our name I could see everyone from my peripheral vision jump up at once. It was awesome,” said Nick Arnold, senior.
“This was the best possible way to find out that we made top ten. It made it so much sweeter,” said Matt Schwartz, senior.
They quickly rushed out of the mall and raced to their hotel a mile away shouting and laughing the whole time. They fervently studied throughout the night, and the following morning competed at the senate office building in the room where every federal judge goes to be questioned by the senate. From nine until one in the afternoon the students competed and did “excellently” as Boesch stated to the watching parents. That evening the banquet was held where the Westminster students found out what place they received.
“I was just thrilled to be in the top ten, and once we were in the top ten our only goal was not to be the tenth,” said Alex Lindstrom, senior.
Along with the hard work that was done there was still time for play. The Westminster students visited the commodore’s house, saw the changing of the guards at Arlington Cemetery, and had the privilege of meeting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Westminster Sweeps Clayton

amandawiele — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:14:27 +0000

Last Tuesday, the Westminster varsity tennis team battled Clayton at home and swept them 7-0.
Jimmy Myers, senior, defeated Orion Wilkinson, who finished third in doubles at last year’s state tournament. Also, Cameron Smith, junior, beat Clayton’s number two, Jake Lee in three sets. Chris Griesidieck, sophomore, earned a win at the four spot.
Nick O’Neal, senior, and Timmy Miller, junior, paired up to get the win at one doubles. John Hunsicker and Zach Schopp, juniors, earned the number two doubles win. Connor Zielonko, junior, and Johnny Kehr, senior, got the final win at number three doubles.
Clayton is thought to be one of the better teams in the area.
“This was a great win for us. Clayton is a really strong team this year. It was encouraging to beat them in the way that we did,” said Stephen Lillenberg, junior.
Lillenberg defeated his opponent at three singles.
This win may provide the Wildcats the encouragement to win state.
“I feel like we look like a state contender from the way we played. Honestly, before that day I don’t think we stepped up high enough to win the title,” said Nathan Talley, head coach.
The team has five remaining regular season matches and the Tournament of Champions, which includes the best eight teams in the state from both classes.

Speaking the Language of Chess

jakegrimes — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:15:14 +0000

On Friday, April 17, the Westminster chess team participated in an international match against Saemmul Middle School in Korea. The tournament was held over Skype and all chess members were encouraged to participate.
“My goal was to use the ancient game of chess and the modern technology of the Internet to connect the students of WCA and Saemmul Middle School,” said Thomas Johnston, chess team coach.
It began at 7:00pm Central Time and 9:00am in Korea Standard Time. Four of Westminster chess team members got to play. Evan Miller, sophomore, played against Wonbae Kim; Harold Ellis, sophomore, played Yedam Kim; Brandon Terlouw, sophomore, played Jeongoo Kim; Aaron Miller, sophomore, played Mingyu Kim.
“The best part was the whole experience of talking with the students when they were across the world,” said Evan Miller.
There were two computers with two games being held on each. When a player wanted to move a piece, he would hold up a card with its picture on it and then say the space where he was to move it. There were a few communication difficulties both technologically and linguistically. Two of the four computers were not functioning correctly and there was some confusion as to where the pieces were located on the board, but this was resolved. Otherwise the games were played without too much difficulty due to language barriers.
“It was great to see exactly when the Korean students were excited and their reaction to each other when a move didn’t work out,” said Terlouw.
WCA won the match, though the Korean students fought hard for two hours. For many of them, it was their first chess tournament, while many of the WCA competitors had participated in several. Even so, the chess team has never participated in an international match.
“It was a chance for kids to dialogue with kids of another culture and allows the Korean students to practice their English,” said Johnston.
At one point, as Johnston handed out ice cream to the Westminster players, the Korean competitors also ate ice cream as they played. Though in different time zones, the chess match minded the basic traditions of the game.
Evan Miller did not think it was much different than a regular chess match.
“The behavior in the match was the same and the Korean students spoke English pretty well,” said Evan Miller.
There were some changes that would be made if an international match took place again.
“There needed to be more computers so that we wouldn’t have to share and more people could play,” said Aaron Miller.
In addition, Terlouw thought there should have been a more accurate way of recording the moves.
In reflection, Johnston views the match as a success.
“It turned out better than I expected. I am very happy at how it eventually came together,” said Johnston.

Wildcats Increase Winning Streak

amandawiele — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:05:15 +0000

Creve Coeur—It did not take long for the Wildcats to jump on the visiting Priory Rebels on Thursday.
After junior Alec Mitchell put the Rebels down one, two, three in the top of the first, the Westminster bats rattled home a run in the first and two runs in the third on their way to a 9-0 victory, improving their record to 12-4 on the season.
In the first, Ryan Allee, junior, roped a base hit over the shortstops head with two outs. After that, Tate Matheny, sophomore, crushed a 0-2 pitch to the leftfield fence to give the Wildcats a lead they would never relinquish.
Mitchell, who went the distance in the game, earned his third victory of the season. Mitchell pitched solidly, allowing only four hits to go along with four strikeouts.
“I felt confident on the mound. It was nice being able to pitch with the lead the whole game. Everyone played really good defense behind me,” said Mitchell.
In the third inning, with two outs and a runner on second, second baseman Connor Einertson, sophomore, made a diving snag to preserve the shutout.
Matheny led the way at the plate for the Wildcats at the plate, going three for four with a double and three RBIs on the day. Matheny improved his batting average to .519 on the season with three home runs to lead the team in both catagories.
“Tate has been on fire the whole season. He has been having great at bats, and he hits the ball very hard,” said John Bergman, senior.
Bergman, who leads the team in stolen bases, with 14, is carrying a .322 batting average as the Wildcats leadoff man.
The Wildcats will take on a 10-1 Ladue team on Monday at home. Ladue will be the toughest game for the Wildcats on the season.

Wildcats Battle Viz With a Convincing 2-1 Victory

amandawiele — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:43:25 +0000

The varsity girls’ soccer team stepped onto the field last Saturday afternoon, preparing to engage in a 90-minute battle. Visitation Academy, one of the highest ranked girls’ soccer team in Missouri small schools, was arguably the toughest opponent the Westminster varsity would face the entire season. In the pre-game huddle, Coach Warren Smith told the team that the game was all going to come down to everyone’s effort on the field. And from start to finish, effort is what defined the varsity girls’ play.
“They were really pushing me around,” said Brittany Zee-Cheng, sophomore, “but when I saw how hard my teammates were working, it encouraged me to push them back.”
Later in the first half, there was a scuffle in front of Visitation’s goal and Zee-Cheng managed to slot the ball past the keeper into the left-hand corner.
“At first I couldn’t believe we’d actually scored first,” said Madeleine Smith, sophomore defender, “but the next second I was running up the field to join in the celebration. We were so pumped.”
Propelled by a 1-0 lead, the Wildcats continued their relentless pressure and determined hustle until the whistle blew at half. Smith warned the girls that Viz would come out with new energy, and challenged them to “pressure, pressure, pressure.”
Taking the field with minds set with a focused determination, the battle continued. No one team dominated control; the second half was back and forth with both teams making clean, organized plays and getting chances at goal. Keeping the audience on the edge of their seat, every moment of play was filled with energy and good, composed soccer. As the game progressed, each team was hungry for a goal, and Visitation took hold of their opportunity. When the WCA defense got sucked over to one side of the field, a Viz winger crossed the ball to striker Jade Klump, freshman, whose strike on goal went to the back of the net.
Still determined, the Westminster girls continued to play their game.
“We were so determined to NOT lose that game. When they scored, it just pushed us harder,” said Lizzie Blackwell, junior forward.
As the clock ticked away and the Cats made their way down the field into the upper third, Ellie Huffman, sophomore gained possession and slotted a perfect ball through the defensive line to Shelby Kehr, freshman, who finished it with a successful shot on goal.
“We went crazy. For us, that was the point of no return,” said Katie Haverstick, senior team captain.
For the remainder of the game, the Lady Wildcats held off the frantic Viz offense until the final blow of the whistle. As the girls walked across the field towards the bleachers with heads held high and faces beaming, they were greeted with an uproar of cheering from their enthusiastic fans and parents.
“Walking off the field with arms around each other was the greatest feeling. I know for a fact everyone gave 110% and it showed. We came out with a convincing win, and it was so satisfying,” said Haverstick.

Henry Shuts Out Rams

jakegrimes — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:29:00 +0000

In a 2-0 victory at Ladue last season, pitching dominated the show as current Detroit Tiger Jacob Turner held the Rams to only 3 hits. This season, Colin Henry, junior, matched his performance.
The junior lefthander threw his second consecutive complete game to lead the Wildcats to a 6-0 victory at home on Monday. The 10-1 Ladue Rams were kept off the bases with no errors behind Henry.
“I felt pretty good, just threw strikes and my defense did the rest,” said Henry.
Henry gave up 3 hits and only 1 walk to go along with 4 strikeouts. After Henry’s first five starts, he has a 1.79 ERA with 18 K’s. The ace of the staff has only allowed 23 hits in 27.3 innings pitched.
Mike Ferrara, senior, who contributed with a diving play, led the defense.
“Colin had been throwing well all year, but didn’t get the best defense and I did my best to make plays behind him,” said Ferrara.
Conner Einertson, sophomore, scored Ryan Allee, junior, on a groundball to second in the fourth inning. A ball hit by Michael Koebbe, senior, was mishandled by the second basemen as Tate Matheny, freshman, came in to score.
After putting up 3 in the fourth, back-to-back walks to John Bergman, senior, and Ferrara led to runs. Allee scored Bergman on a fly ball to centerfield and Ferrara scored on a suicide squeeze by Einertson.
The Cats managed to score a final run as Andrew Beck, junior, singled to left, moved to second on a pass ball and then came around to score on a single by Bergman.
Westminster finished the day with 6 runs scored on 6 base hits and 3 walks. The win over a Class 4 school in Ladue will help the Wildcats gain seeding in districts.
“We have a storied rivalry against Ladue and this was a big win for us because they are one of our hardest opponents this season,” said Ferrara.
Westminster improves to 13-4 on the season. The Wildcats will put their 5-game winning streak on the line at Principia on Tuesday. The Cats finish the week at Priory at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Dead Body Demo

jakegrimes — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:32:40 +0000

A row of white sheet-covered students lined up in a row on Wednesday during middle and upper school lunch to illustrate the amount of people that die each year in Missouri due to tobacco and cigarettes.
The SWAT team’s, Students Working Against Tobacco, goal is to educate their peers and make a difference regarding tobacco in schools and the community.
“I wanted to be a part of this demonstration because I remembered it from last year and realized how many people died each day,” said Ellie Straub, freshman SWAT member.
SWAT team members were encouraged to bring a friend outside of SWAT to be a part of the demonstration.
“I came with a SWAT person, because I wanted to make a statement about smoking,” said Katherine Hickman, junior.
Sherry Blough, SWAT advisor, initiated the idea of the dead body demonstration.
“I think it has a definite message. It’s a reminder that smoking and breathing second-hand smoke can cause death and disease,” said Blough.
This demonstration kicked off three days of tobacco awareness. Beginning on Wednesday, the SWAT team put numbers and statistics relating to tobacco at strategic locations on the floor around the school.
Everyone in the school was encouraged to guess what each statistic meant and give their answer in the Guidance Department. Megan Galvin, 7th grader, guessed correctly on Wednesday and received a $10 dollar Bread Co. gift card. The winners for Thursday and Friday will be announced at the end of the each day along with a Biblical message from a SWAT team member.

Changes Come To International Day

jakegrimes — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:39:05 +0000

For years, International Day has been an important activity of the Westminster language department. This year, though, it came with some changes to make it more organized.
“[International Day] used to be pretty much chaos,” said Joan Dudley, upper school Spanish teacher and head of the language department.
So International Day organizers, including foreign language teachers, implemented changes this year to fix this problem. The biggest change, said Dudley, was the moving of the event form the Commons to the Old Gym. This larger space allowed for more tables to be set up, and meant that it was less crowded.
“In years previous, there’s been a lot of pushing and shoving, since there wasn’t much room in the Commons for all of the people.”
According to Dudley, the move to the gym also made lines shorter.
“It used to be that the tables with the food on them would be right up against the wall, so people couldn’t go around to the other side of them, which caused really long lines. Now, though, since there’s more room in the Old Gym, students can access both sides of the tables, and so the lines are not nearly as long,” she said.
Students seemed to share this opinion.
“I thought the wait and lines were so much better this year,” said Alex Langley, junior. “Last year, when the tables were set up in the Commons, there were lines going all the way into the Middle School hallway. But this year, there weren’t really any lines at all.”
International day was started by Florence Lewis, upper school Latin teacher, over fifteen years ago. It was, according to Dudley, originally only four tables of food set up in the cafeteria, at which language students would stand and explain their dishes to the students eating them. It has grown significantly since then—this year a total of 603 language students participated.
International Day’s purpose is to celebrate cultures other than America’s, and the differences between them.
“One of the biggest parts of any culture is its food, so food is a good way to celebrate and experience other cultures.” says Dudley, “It’s also good that students get the opportunity to use and follow an authentic recipe, use ingredients different from what they would normally use, and cook in ways that might be new to them. So it’s a learning experience in two ways–students get to both cook and eat food from other cultures”.
She said there are few things she will change next year.
“We may try to improve the card labeling system, because there were some problems. But generally I think the changes worked very well, and we were very happy with how it went this year.”

Coast to Coast

amandawiele — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:14:20 +0000

For every High school student in America, this Friday marks the beginning of nine days of rest and relaxation. Every year, students look forward to the time to forget school, and enjoy all that spring has to offer. When only hours remain till Friday afternoon, students tend to get very distracted, and for some students, spring break can mentally start much earlier than the nineteenth. Nine glorious, blissful days of nothing but sun, flip flops and swimming pools can be very exhilarating to think about. It is the time for Westminster students to disperse throughout the country in an effort to find the warmest beaches and coolest coasters.
While the most popular vacation spot for Westminster students was Florida, some students journeyed to the Grand Canyon, Michigan and even France. Some go with family, some go with friends, some stay in town. But for every last Westminster student, spring break is the turning point from the middle of the school year to the home stretch. A much needed break that signals the end of cold dark winter days, and welcomes in the beautiful, colorful days of April and May. The Westminster baseball team makes it’s annual trip to Cocoa Beach, Florida for it’s spring baseball tournament. For Rich Van Gilst, head baseball coach, the trip to Florida is nothing new.
“Honestly, I’ve been so many times, that I wouldn’t mind if I never see that place again. The team has been going since the middle of the 90’s. I bet I have been almost twenty times.”
Other students break out of their routine trips and go somewhere new and exciting.
“ We just wanted to go out of the country somewhere, and the Dominican Republic is what we came to. We’re going by our selves and we are just going to do whatever comes up,” said Jake O’Brien and Jack Ross.

Giddy Up: Turnabout

amandawiele — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:18:47 +0000

Westminster was overrun with cowboys and cowgirls last Friday during the Spring Event. Girls asked guys to accompany them to Turnabout which consisted of square and line dancing, crazy costumes, and great decorations. A professional caller was hired to teach students the finer points of square dancing.
“Everything pretty much went as planned, it was really fun.” Said Emily Horak, freshman.
Although much of the night was spent with a specific date there was plenty of opportunity to meet new people. Mrs. Pike even danced with many of the visitors.
“I met so many people, I had a great time.” Said Elise Hearne, freshman