Lincoln East High School was the clear team winner in Thursday's 20th annual University of Nebraska-Lincoln Math Day competition, which drew 1,357 students from 100 Nebraska schools.

But Lincoln Southwest's Albert Zhou also came out on top, winning an $8,000 Math Day scholarship from UNL plus $3,000 cash in a new special contest, "Who Wants to be a Mathematician," sponsored by the American Mathematical Society.

Lincoln East took first place in Class A in both the Math Bowl Tournament and the Probe I competition. Team members were Preston Bradley, Jahan Claes, Sean Douglas, Parviz Kholmatov and Darrin Lim.

In "Who Wants to be a Mathematician," contestants are asked two series of eight oral questions. The winners of each series won $500 and then went head-to-head for one more round for $500. The winner of that round won the chance at one question worth $2,000. Zhou won the opening series and the head-to-head, and he answered the $2,000 question for his overall winning total of $3,000.

Jahan Claes of Lincoln East was second with $500. The remaining six contestants were: Sang-won Bahng, Mt. Michael Benedictine; Maesen Churchill, Lincoln East; Thomas Fryklind, Archbishop Bergan; Hayoon Lee, Lincoln Southwest; Darrin Lim, Lincoln East, and Katie Sedlar, Mickle Middle School. Texas Instruments and MapleSoft donated prizes for the contestants.

The purpose of Math Day is to promote the mathematical sciences and UNL. It consists of two individual and two team mathematics competitions, plus information about majors and departments, career information, and recreational mathematical activities.

All students start with a multiple choice, preliminary exam called PROBE I (Problems Requiring Original and Brilliant Effort). The top three females and males receive awards.

The top 50 students move on to take an essay exam called PROBE II. The top 10 on PROBE II are awarded a total of $34,000 in 4-year scholarships to UNL.

Results:

Math Bowl Tournament

Class A -- 1. Lincoln East; 2. Millard North.

Class B -- 1. Mt. Michael Benedictine (Sang-won Bahng, Darren Chew, Kyung Mo Kang, Gunhee Park); 2. Duchesne Academy.

Class C -- 1. Grand Island Central Catholic (Jackson Buck, Dylan Redman, Joey Starkey, Austin Witmer); 2. Archbishop Bergan.

Class D -- 1. Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran (Ian Fury, Marcus Henning, Jaewon Lee, Thomas Rockhoff, Amy Schroeder); 2. Bertrand Community.

PROBE I Team Competition (maximum possible team score is 100)

Class A -- Lincoln East (89.0), Creighton Prep (78.6), Lincoln Southwest (75.8), Westside (70.8), Millard North (68.2).

Class B -- Mt. Michael Benedictine (70.25), Duchesne Academy Sacred Heart (56.75), Skutt Catholic (56.50), Norris (54.00), Broken Bow (48.75).

Class C -- Brownell-Talbot (60.67), Archbishop Bergan (56.00), Yutan (50.00), Grand Island Central Catholic (48.33), Elmwood-Murdock (47.67).

Class D -- Mickle Middle School (55.00), Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran (54.33), Bertrand Community (48.00), College View Academy (43.33), Lindsay Holy Family (43.33) (tie for 4th).

PROBE I top 3 students:

Females -- 1. (tie) Maesen Churchill, Lincoln East, and Hayoon Lee, Lincoln Southwest; 3. Katie Sedlar, Mickle Middle School.

Males -- 1. Albert Zhou, Lincoln Southwest; 2. (tie) Jahan Claes, Lincoln East, and Darrin Lim, Lincoln East.

PROBE II (Scholarship Competition)

Top 10 students are awarded 4-year Math Day Scholarships to UNL. Award for 1st is $8,000; for 2nd-5th is $4,000; for 6-10th is $2,000 (amount given is the 4-year total).

1. Albert Zhou (Lincoln Southwest)

2. Richard Zhang (Lincoln East)

3. Maesen Churchill (Lincoln East)

4. Peter Xu (Omaha North)

5. Jeffmin Lin (Creighton Prep)

6. Darrin Lim (Lincoln East)

7. Sang-won Bahng (Mt. Michael Benedictine)

8. Nathan Germer (Lincoln East)

9. Jahan Claes (Lincoln East)

10. Preston Bradley (Lincoln East)