Three of Islip’s Science Olympiad teams participated in the annual Eastern Long Island Regional competition on Jan. 29, with all three finishing in the top 20 overall out of 46 competing teams, and earning 21 total top 10 medals at the competition. Each team spent months preparing for 25 different science and engineering events in categories like Forensics, Helicopters and Wind Power.

The top six teams from the region automatically qualified for the state tournament. Islip’s A team came in third overall in Suffolk County, allowing its 15 students to advance to the New York State competition, which was held March 10-11 at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.

First-place finishers for Islip included seniors James O’Halloran and Brendan Mercado in the Astronomy category, senior Zoe Camhi and Mercado in Ecology, junior Julia Hormann and sophomore Matt Southard in Forensics, juniors Kyle Ness and Ryan Scheidel in Game On, Camhi and Mercado in Invasive Species, and O’Halloran and Mercado in Materials Science.