Every week a group of more than 40 students gets together after school, skipping the movies or the mall to practice a favorite subject: math. It appears practice pays off.

Sycamore Canyon students dominated the Ventura/Santa Barbara Mathcounts chapter competition late last month, with seven of eight Mathletes placing in the top 35 of 200 competitors.

Coach Malinda Young attributes the club's success to consistent training.

"We work on problem solving," Young said. "They are really enthusiastic about learning and are motivated to learn things beyond their grade level."

Eighth-graders Michael Iorga and Joyce Shi placed third and fifth respectively, qualifying them to participate in the final buzz round of the competition, where Michael moved up to first and Joyce to fourth overall.

The two represented the Ventura/Santa Barbara chapter at last weekend's state competition in Irvine, both improving on their performances from last year.

Out of the 40 youths who come regularly to practice and are part of the club, only the top eight plus two alternates are chosen to compete. Other competition team members include sixth-graders Alec Brickner, Wendy Chen and Alex Vesling, seventh-graders Sanjay Siddhanti and Kartik Sawant, and eighth-graders Sarah Stevens, Kavya Singampalli and Andrew Rashoff.

Young said having students from several different grades helps the club improve every year.

"The older kids will help the younger kids and motivate them to learn concepts they don't learn in their sixth-grade math classes," Young said. "Then, the tradition continues."

This is Sycamore Canyon's third year participating in the Mathcounts program, which Young introduced upon arriving at the school. She'd been involved in the program while teaching in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"It's been growing more and more," Young said. "We are having more and more kids interested, and our scores are getting better.

"Maybe one day we'll have a kid place in the state level. That's my goal."

There are 18 teams in the Ventura/Santa Barbara chapter, which includes schools from Oak Park to Santa Barbara.

Mathcounts is one of the largest and most successful national mathematics competitions for middle school students, with about 40,000 students from all 50 states and U.S. territories participating annually.