John Marshall High School (Northside)
| John Marshall High School | |
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[[Image:|center||John Marshall High School logo]] | |
| School Founded | 1949 |
| Team Established | |
| History | Marshall won the Region IV competition in 1991, and was competitive during the eighties and nineties, but last qualified for state in 2005. A recent resurgence by Marshall landed them at the top of their region once again, qualifying for state in every year since 2016. |
| City | San Antonio, Texas |
| Team Colors | Maroon and White |
| Principal | Susan Cleveland |
| Head Coach | Ruben Pena |
| Associate/Other Head Coach(es) | Anthony Gonzales, Thomas Gage, James Slagle |
| National Championships | None |
| State Championships | None |
| Regional/County Championships | 6 (1991,2016,2018,2019,2020,2022) |
| Region/County Location | Region IV |
| Highest Finish | Second in 2019 Texas Academic Decathlon State Championship |
| School Website | Website |
Early Years
John Marshall High School, home to the Rams, was competitive at state during the late eighties and early nineties, earning seventh at State in 1991, marking the highest point the Marshall Rams had performed at State up to that point. Marshall remained competitive to qualify for state on several occasions up until 2005.
Struggle and Resurgence
However, by 2012-13, the Rams had fallen on hard times, finishing last among all teams in Region IV. The following year, Ruben Pena became the head coach of the Rams and began a remarkable transformation, taking the team from last to third. In 2014-15, Marshall nearly qualified for state on the backs of Darwin Henderson and Reid Christopher leading the Honors (A) category.
In 2015-16, the Rams team comprised of Courtney Acevedo, Justin Allen, Joshua Garcia, Darwin Henderson, Alyssa Kerr, Dylan Lewis, Victor Saadeh, Alex Trejos, and Laura Vela. This team would go on to secure Marshall's first championship in a quarter-century and earning an automatic berth into the State competition.
The 2016-17 team fell short of winning back-to-back Regional titles, but managed a strong enough score to earn an at-large berth into the State competition.
The 2017-18 team, lead by decathletes Julian Gentry, Jenny Stewart, Collin Ward, Giovanni Carrasco, Ben Updike, Abby Ostmo and Devin Geelhoed led the Rams effort to an emphatic Regional title, winning the Super Quiz with 29/39 and with multiple individual finishes: 1st and 2nd in Varsity (Stewart and Gentry, respectively), 1st and 5th in Scholastic (Ward and Carrasco, respectively) and 1st, 2nd and 4th in Honors respectively (Updike, Geelhoed and Ostmo, respectively). Ben Updike's 8,629 would lead the way for Marshall to win with 44,350.2 points.
The next year they set their goals to even loftier heights, achieving at a level that reflected and even surpassed the teams of the previous century mentioned above. With a team of Robert Gil, Elisa Lopez, Kenton Romero, Adriana Vela, Collin Ward, Cassandra Vargas, Abigail Ostmo, and Devin Geelhoed, the Marshall decathletes finished 1st in region IV by a wide margin and landed in second place in large schools for the entire state of Texas. The team was widely considered as an underdog in the state competition after what looked like fluky regional success, but their triumph to take second place was nothing if not well-deserved after the incredible efforts put in by the team to become a major player in Texas Academic Decathlon.
