It wasn't until 10 minutes before time was up -- when Franceine Welcome, a sixth-grader from Thomas Hooker, put down her pencil -- that she could take in the view Tuesday of the Ballpark at Harbor Yard from the Harbor Club restaurant on the top floor and watched as a work crew readied the field for a Bluefish night game.

Franceine, 11, declared the individual round fairly easy and she would go on to share a first-place finish -- answering seven out of 10 problems correctly -- with Karina Valladare, a sixth-grader from Columbus, and Emily Soares, a Park City Magnet sixth-grader.

The second team competition was tougher by Franceine's estimation. It required her not only to solve the math problem assigned to her, but assist teammates who struggled with their problems --without really doing the work for them.

A lot of scrap paper was sacrificed in the process.

By the end of the morning, Hooker and Marin schools would share the top team prize, each answering all five of the team problems correctly.

Ron Rapice, teacher of the talented and gifted program at Columbus School, initiated the competition as a precursor to an annual citywide Mathematics Meet for grades 7 and 8. In that competition, held two weeks ago and overseen by Math Department Chairman Ricardo Rosa, Multi-cultural Magnet School walked away with first place. Second place went to Park City Magnet School and third place was awarded to Winthrop School. The top performing student in that competition was Alex Wiltshire from Longfellow School. He did all the problems, except one, correctly. Alex was rewarded with a CASIO scientific calculator.

The elementary school competition held at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard featured Columbus School, Marin, Classical Studies, Park City Magnet and Hooker. Math coaches at each school came armed with their best five fourth- through sixth-grade math students. No calculators were allowed.

There were two 30-minute rounds, one for individuals, one a team effort. Mariah Valentin, 12, a Columbus sixth-grader, said math is her favorite subject. "To me, it's the most challenging thing you can do and I like working with numbers," she said.

Jasmine Velazquez, 12, a Marin sixth-grader, said she likes math because it's universal. "You can do it no matter what language you speak," said Jasmine, who has family from Mexico.

Most of the competitors deemed the competition easier than the Connecticut Mastery Test they must take every March.

Alex Sayan, a student from Hooker, said the only problem that gave him a hard time involved finding the sum of the area of the shaded area of a square that had an inner square inside.

Kerna Fequiere, a student from Classical Studies, said she liked the team competition better than individuals. In the team round, everyone had one problem to solve and then coach teammates through their problem.

"A nine can't go into that girl," Alex was overheard telling Jaylin Warren, who had declared her problem "a killer."