The “Sum Dog” team at Ironton Elementary School won its first National Championship for the week of March 17 through March 23.

The “Sum Dog” website, www.sumdog.com, is dedicated to fifth grade math tests, games and races, and hosts a U.S. National Math Competition each week. As part of the national competition, each student on each team must answer 1,000 questions throughout the week.

The team that competes at Ironton Elementary School is coached by math teacher Leslie Kerns, and has about 13 members each week, although some individual members may change.

“We came in second place in the nation two weeks in a row the two weeks before we won,” Kerns said. “I’m extremely proud of all of the work that the students put in to achieve this. We don’t spend any class time on it, so the students completed the questions all on their own time.”

Kerns added that the students answered their questions in homeroom, at home and some even gave up recess time to complete the test.

For the week of March 17 through March 23, a total of 19,222 students and 2,354 schools across the nation squared off. Ironton Elementary took first place with a score of 919, the average number of answers the students answered correctly out of 1,000.

Ironton Elementary beat out Shasta Lake Elementary, of California, who came in second place with a score of 796 and Northwest Middle School, of Pennsylvania, who came in third with a score of 738.

The team also had eight students place in the top 40 with their scores, as Connor Lowe came in 31st, Sascha Posch 25th, Kaeli Huff 20th, Ben Sloan 12th, Bryson Burcham 11th, Ian Ginger 10th, Hunter Freeman ninth and Ethan Hellyer sixth.

Kerns also coaches the school’s Matheletes team, which is separate from the Sum Dog team, although there are some overlap in students.