Four Ansonia High School students each got a $1,000 bump for their college funds after they took home top honors last week in a business competition held at Fairfield University.
A total of 16 teams from the state took part in the competition, held by Junior Achievement of Western Connecticut Friday (March 16).
The Ansonia team — seniors Alex Westine, Daniel Kiley, Volodymyr Jatsiv and junior Darby Caneen — spent a lot of time preparing for the competition, according to adviser Sara Crooks, who teaches business classes at Ansonia High School.
“They practiced on their own time and meet as a team outside school hours,” Crooks said.
The competition featured 16 teams from high schools throughout the region, including teams from Shelton, Seymour, and Derby.
The teams compete against one another to sell a fictional product, making adjustments to price, inventory, capital investments, and other factors. The competition featured two rounds of competition, during which Crooks couldn’t have any contact with her students.
“It is so intense,” she said. “I was looking at them through the window. I didn’t want to move. They would turn around and give me signals as to how they were doing.”
Crooks said the Ansonia team finished third last year, behind teams from Trumbull and Fairfield, but that the first-place win this year couldn’t have happened to a better group.
“They’re such wonderful people, they have great personalities, and they’re really invovled with the school,” she said. “They really deserve this.”
Ansonia Superintendent Carol Merlone attended the event and said she was “highly impressed” with the competition and Ansonia’s team.
“It’s really a demonstration of the students’ knowledge of business,” she said. “I think it’s good to be in a highly competitive situation, because that’s life.”
