On Saturday, Jan. 31, the Mayfield Science Olympiad Division C team traveled to Solon High School to compete against nationally recognized teams at their third invitational of the season. This year, 48 teams participated, reaching for the glory of victory.

The Solon Invitational is one of most competitive invitationals, attracting top teams from many other states as well. But the team prevailed with impressive ribbons and medals in Bridge Building, Dynamic Planet, Forensics, Fossils, Geologic Mapping, Mission Possible, and Protein Modeling, proving the team’s capabilities and potential in the future.

The level of difficulty of this invitational still left the team skeptical of any team awards, however. Thus the team members were in disbelief when they heard Mayfield announced as the 8^th place trophy-winning team—it was the first trophy from the Solon Invitational in years.

But the team’s success at Solon was not entirely unanticipated. Two weekends earlier, the Mayfield Science Olympiad team travelled to Kenston High School and also brought home a hard-earned 6^th place trophy, out of 42 total competing teams.

The Mayfield students emerged victorious in a variety of events, such as Bridge Building, Dynamic Planet, Forensics, Protein Modeling, Compound Machines, and more. Totaling at 12 individual awards, 5 of which were medals, the team showed a brilliant comeback from the rather discouraging 6 ribbons from the previous Westlake Invitational.

Doubling the number of awards, the team members were vibrant with excitement. “I’m so happy that we improved so much since the last competition. This is a huge encouragement to all of us, and I hope that the team continues to climb the ranks,“ said junior Nick Gawry.

The joy did not stop there, however. The multiple awards of the individuals added up, and the Mayfield team proudly held a 6^th place team trophy with a total of 349 points, which was more than 40 points less than the 7^th place team, Amherst High School. The Mayfield team placed the trophy in the High School’s display case in the main hallway, where it joined the historic victories from past seasons.

Members continue to work for their coming competitions, including the CWRU Regional competition on February 21^st. Only the top teams from the regional competition qualify to compete in the OSU State competition. In the past, the Division C team has qualified for five consecutive years.

Among the many practices that are held after school for the various Science Olympiad events, junior Rotem Avisar and senior Stephanie Lamb stay after school every day to work on Bungee Drop. In this event, they engineer and calibrate a bungee cord, attach a weight, and make weight drop as close to the floor as possible from a significant height, while not hitting the ground.

“If we continue to work hard, and encourage the younger members of the team to study, we may be able to make another trip to OSU, one last time,” said Lamb, who is also co-captain of the team. For the seniors, this season is very meaningful. Many of them have been competing in Science Olympiad since elementary school.

“It’s been a huge part of my life, and I can’t believe it’s about to end soon. But I hope we can make the best of it, and have the most exciting and successful season yet,” said senior Tiffany Pham.

Adding two new trophies to the Science Olympiad trophy case, they hope to continue the State qualifying streak, taking charge of the team like the previous seniors had done before.

The team travels to Mentor on Saturday, Feb. 14, for one of the largest and competitive Science Olympiad invitationals in the nation, where they will take another grand step towards the greatly anticipated State competition in Columbus.