On Feb. 7, the Academy High School Science Bowl team placed first at the New Mexico Regional Science Bowl, beating rival Los Alamos for the first time in five years. The team is made up of seniors Andy Chen ‘15, Raine Min ‘15, Andrew Nelson ‘15, and Ben Zolyomi ‘15, and they are sponsored by math faculty member Jason Zuffranieri. The team now advances to the National Science Bowl, which will take place in Washington, D.C. from Apr. 30 – May 4.

Science Bowl is a quiz bowl event in which two teams compete against one another, solving technical problems and answering questions covering all scientific areas of knowledge. There is also an engineering event at the national level in which students must design, build, and race model cars.

According to Zolyomi, defeating the Los Alamos team was not an easy task. “They brought a good show,” he said. “They kept us on our toes and made the competition more exciting.” Although the national competition is approximately two months away, the team still has a lot of studying to do. “We need to go through more questions and expand our knowledge base. The issues we had [during regionals] were not because of team dynamics—it was mainly just not enough knowledge,” Zolyomi said. “How much effort we put in will be what we bring to Nationals.”

Chen, Min, and Zolyomi have been Science Bowl team members since sixth grade. In 2010, they clinched the National Middle School Science Bowl title along with team member Eric Li ‘14. Nelson is a new addition to the team and joined in December 2014.

“I have faith that we will do well [at nationals]. I would not be surprised if we managed to make top eight,” Zolyomi said. “But the high school competition is very volatile. It could swing either way.”

Photo (left to right): Andrew Nelson ’15, Andy Chen ’15, Raine Min ’15, Ben Zolyomi ’15, and Jason Zuffranieri