The seniors of Science Olympiad have a big job-balancing classes, preparing their own events and mentoring and organizing the underclassmen.

“I’m in a lot of clubs, [have] a lot of schoolwork [and] a lot of hard classes. It’s definitely a struggle to balance it all, [and] it’s just [a matter of] keeping on top of what you’re doing and staying organized,” Nicole Geer (12) said.  

On top of Science Olympiad and classes, the seniors have to prepare themselves to go away for college next year.

“The first semester [of senior year] I’ve heard is going to be really rough because there’s college applications going on, and there’s a lot of homework, too,” Neal Govani (12) said.

The seniors hold most of the responsibility in Science Olympiad, so they have to work together to bring the team to their peak performance.

“As seniors, we’re all running [Science Olympiad] together,” Geer said. “There are a lot of us, so we can divvy it up a bit.”

The team has placed fourth in the state competition for the last four years and hopes to advance farther this year.

“I’ve never seen a senior class like this, these kids are hungry. They started working over the summer, [and] probably half of them studied all summer long for Science Olympiad events. I’ve never seen that,” Mrs. Mary Joan Martin, Science, said.

With the experienced seniors and eager underclassmen, the team feels their chances for this year have improved.

“I think we have a really good chance of making it to nationals this year. There’s a lot of brainpower, and there’s a lot of great potential [in the underclassmen],” Rachel Kozel (12) said.

Kozel isn’t the only one who sees the team heading toward greatness.

“I think we’re going to do really well. We’ve got some really smart seniors that are fantastic in their events. They work so hard, and they’ve come so far that I can’t see them doing anything but greatness,” Geer said.