On Saturday, the Townsend Harris Science Olympiad team placed first overall at the SCIOLY Regionals by a margin of 60 points.  The team received 39 medals at the competition, with nine of them being first place.

Chemistry teacher and SCIOLY head coach Thomas Sangiorgi led the team to victory for the second year in a row.

Biology teacher and main assistant coach to Mr. Sangiorgi, Katherine Cooper, commented on this year’s victory saying, “We won, it wasn’t a ‘close winning,’ it was a decisive victory. The teachers contributed to student practices but much of it came from the students themselves showing how much they want [to win].”

Senior and SCIOLY President Jasmine Brite explains how “students with study events spent hours reading textbooks, taking practice tests with their partners, and perfecting cheat sheets [while] builders made countless adjustments to their devices and tested many times in order to ensure that they were ready for competition.”

Sophomore Valerie Shum, a new participant in the competition, describes her first experience as a winner, stating, “When I kept on hearing Stuyvesant team members being called on as first place, I got a bit scared, but when I heard Stuyvesant High School called as second place, I was freaking out. Everyone was ecstatic.”

As seniors are getting prepared to graduate THHS, it raises the question over the future of the team. To this, Senior Cindy Lin responds, “ A bunch of seniors from the ‘A’ team were leaving [last year] and we still managed to win. It’s just a matter of effort.”

Cindy continued by expressing her feelings towards winning, stating, “I’m really proud of my team, it’s better than what I expected.”

With this being her last year in SCIOLY, Jasmine concluded, “I could not ask for a better way to end my Science Olympiad Regionals experience.”