Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

The Brighton High School and Scranton Middle School teams performed admirably in the recently-held state Science Olympiad competition held at Michigan State University. Brighton High School finished 13th out of 54 high schools from around the state, while Scranton placed 16th, also out of 54 teams. Both teams’ scores were the highest they had placed in the last 10 years.

The Scranton group garnered second place in Write It Do it, third in Experimental Design, seventh in both Pentathlon and Entomology and eighth in Crime Busters. Their high school counterparts finished 4th in Tower, 5th in Robot Tour, 6th in Bungee Drop and 8th in Entomology.

Brighton Science Olympiad Coach Shannan Pereira says both teams did well, but she singled out the high schoolers for praise since four of their members were in the the high school theater production “Anastasia” the night before and were going on very little sleep.

Only two teams from Michigan qualify each year to compete in the nationals. This year it was Slauson and Clague of Ann Arbor at the middle school level and, at the high school level, Novi and Pioneer of Ann Arbor.