On Saturday, Dec. 19, the Shady Side Academy Middle School Science Olympiad team placed fifth out of 153 teams in Division B (grades 6-9) at the virtual Scilympiad Practice 2 Invitational.

The following students earned top 20 finishes in their events:

• Ethan Hou, Elliott Scheri, Rohan Shrishrimal: 2nd for Experiment & Data Analysis
• Shaurya Gulati, Elliott Scheri: 3rd for Anatomy & Physiology
• Anna Apetrei-Pandrea, Ethan Hou: 4th for Mission Possible
• Navya Arora, Sophia Gombos: 5th for Road Scholar
• Jeffrey Brunner, Evan Xiang: 6th for Mousetrap Vehicle
• Ethan Hou, Rohan Shrishrimal: 6th for Water Quality
• Ian Mocker, Andrew Zeng: 8th for Circuit Lab
• Shaurya Gulati, Andrew Zeng: 10th for Density Lab
• Maya Agarwal, Diya Shrishrimal: 12th for Game On
• Jeffrey Brunner, Sophia Gombos: 13th for Meteorology
• Anna Apetrei-Pandrea, Ethan Chen, Evan Xiang: 14th for Code Busters
• Anna Apetrei-Pandrea, Ethan Chen: 17th for Disease Detectives
• Navya Arora, Rohan Shrishrimal: 18th for Reach for the Stars

Science Olympiad is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of K-12 science education, increasing male, female and minority interest in science, creating a technologically-literate workforce and providing recognition for outstanding achievement by both students and teachers.

Congratulations to the team and its coaches, Middle School science teachers Bonnie Maxwell, Matt Brunner and Paul Waked, as well as Chris Erler.