By Hannah Lilienthal

Wartburg College’s mathematics department is savoring the second-place finish of Brian Vachta ’12 at the Iowa Collegiate Mathematics Contest.

“I’m very happy,” said Vachta. “I think as a group, when we finished the competition, we felt we had done very well, regardless of the scores.”

Vachta — along with Dan Mysnyk ’13, Jon Juett ’12 and Nick Novotny ’12 —competed Feb. 25 at the University of Iowa against students from colleges throughout the state. Teams of three had to solve 10 math problems in three hours or less. The winning team would get the chance to host the event next year.

Because teams are composed of three students, Mysnyk, Juett and Novotny formed one team, while Vachta was placed with two students from Drake University.

“One of the advantages of a team composed of two different schools was that they each had different strengths and weaknesses,” said Dr. Brian Birgen, associate professor of mathematics. “There were problems that Vachta knew how to do that they didn’t and vice versa. So it worked out very well.”

Dr. Mariah Birgen, associate professor of mathematics, was impressed with Vachta’s performance.

“I’m very proud of him. As a senior math major, Brian’s mathematics have grown leaps and bounds since I remember him as a first-year student,” she said.

Even during his first year, Vachta took an honorable mention at the International Math Modeling Competition, which is held annually at Wartburg.

As for his future plans, Vachta is awaiting replies from graduate schools.