The Science Olympiad team had a strong showing at the Neuqua Valley High School Invitational Dec. 10-11, where the varsity team placed second, junior varsity placed 11th, and the whole group received the Spirit Award.

Since this was the first invitational of the year, the group met almost every day after school for build time to prepare for the competition. 

Fermi Boonstra, a captain, was surprised when the junior varsity team was named Spirit Award winner.

“Lab isn’t really known to be the most spirited school. We’re one of the most competitive teams in the state,” Fermi said. “The schools who are less competitive will usually go for the Spirit Award, and try really hard, so it was unexpected, because all we were doing was cheering our team on.”

In preparation for their graduations at the end of the school year, the captains have been training younger members in hopes of advancing to the national competition. 

“We got third at state last year, which is the highest we’ve ever gotten. We need second place to get to nationals,” said Serena Thomas, another captain. “We’re really trying to train our new members to follow in our footsteps and make sure our team is constantly improving in order to achieve our goal.”