February 24, 2025—Walton Latin recently participated in the 2025 Princeton Certamen Tournament in Princeton, New Jersey. Certamen is the Latin version of the academic bowl, with questions on history, geography, culture, mythology, language, and more. Three teams play against each other simultaneously.
Walton Certamen students practice once a week after school and during student-led practices during the Enrichment Block. They spend hours preparing by reading, studying, and quizzing each other. Each team member is responsible for mastering specific areas: one focuses on history/geography/daily life and customs, another is in charge of mythology, one keys in on literature, while a fourth concentrates on language-related topics like Latin in daily use and words derived from Latin. All are experts in grammar, vocabulary, translation, listening comprehension, and many other mechanics of Latin itself.
Four Walton teams participated—two at the intermediate level (Latin II) and two at the advanced level (Latin III and above)—against a field of some of the best teams in the country. Walton won the tournament at both the intermediate and advanced levels! This makes it five wins in a row for Walton in the elite Ivy League competitions. The team won back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024 at both Harvard and Yale, and now at Princeton. They have also been undefeated in local tournaments for the last five years.
"I'm extremely proud of the hard work and dedication that our students have shown to achieve success at the highest levels," said Walton teacher and Certamen coach Alan Farnsworth. "In addition to all the studying and practice, a key to our students’ success is how well they work together as teammates and support each other.
The championship intermediate team comprised Allie Chastain, Leo Leger, Nicolas Panya, and Neh Sharma. Leo was named intermediate-level tournament MVP. The championship advanced team was composed of Aaron Chen, Kashyap Valeti, Jerry Xu, and William Zhao. William was named advanced-level tournament MVP.
"Our advanced kids have set a great example to the younger kids playing on the intermediate and novice teams," said Coach Farnsworth proudly.
The two other Walton teams did great but were unfortunately knocked out in the semifinals. The members of those teams were Warrina Lan, Jenny Li, and Emily Moradi (intermediate) and Mokshi Gunduboina, Bassil Maayah, Aidan Patel, and Ribhu Sonthi (advanced).
"The leadership at Walton has been extremely supportive and has created an environment that supports the growth of all students in whatever worthy goals they are trying to reach. We are grateful to our principal, Dr. Stephanie Santoro, and her team," concluded Coach Farnsworth about Walton's long-term success.
