LEBANON — The last few years have been tough for Lebanon High School’s Science Olympiad team.

The COVID-19 pandemic cut their 2020 season short. In 2021, the team was smaller and did not have any new members.

But this year is different: For the first time in its eight-year existence, Lebanon’s Science Olympiad team won the New Hampshire state championship and will represent the state at nationals next month.

Two teams — made up of 15 students each — competed at the state championship at Saint Anselm College last month, the first in-person competition this year. On the bus ride back, they got the news that they won, besting eight other schools to advance to the virtual national competition May 9-14.

“Our goal historically has been to get individual students to medal in all events,” said John Tietjen, the group’s adviser and a science teacher at LHS, during a gathering with team members Thursday. He described the competitions throughout the year as an “academic track meet.”

“We advance to nationals as a team,” he said.

Science Olympiad has 23 STEM-related categories, and students typically compete in pairs. There are traditional timed exams, experiments and tasks. On the Lebanon team, the students get a say in where they want to compete.

“Each event has a different policy with what you can bring,” junior Miles Sturges said. In the “Codebusters” category that he competes in, where he uses ciphers to decode messages, “a few keys are provided but you need to know how to use them.”

Seniors Alyssa Graber and Clara Smyrski have been on the team since they were freshmen.

“Freshman year, I won’t say we were very much assets to the team,” Graber said.

As the years have gone on, their confidence and their abilities have grown.

“I think it’s just a really cool way to learn about things you wouldn’t in science class,” Smyrski said.

Students prepare as a group and study on their own. Sometimes, they come to the high school on weekends to practice lab experiments.

Prior to the pandemic, students attended in-person competitions at universities including Harvard, Brown and MIT. This year, students competed virtually, though hosted by those universities; the California Institute of Technology will host the virtual national championship next month.

The team for nationals can have only 15 students, which Tietjen described as a difficult.

“Ultimately, decisions were based on a variety of factors, including the event time conflicts in the national tournament schedule, the students’ prior experience and performance, and the need to cover all 23 events as competitively as possible,” he said.

Prior to the pandemic, students attended in-person competitions at Harvard, Brown and MIT, among other schools.

This year’s team has 20 new members from all grade levels.

“This year I said, ‘Let’s fire up the program,’ ” Tietjen said.

Sophomore Zachary Thornton, who moved to the Upper Valley from Georgia last year, was one of those students.

“It looked fun,” Thornton said of the Science Olympiad. “I wanted to try it out.”

It also gives students a chance to learn for the sake of learning and “explore something academically without the pressure of grades,” said junior Mary Rainey, who is new to the team this year. In Science Olympiad, there is no penalty when they get something wrong.

Every student who wants to be on the team at LHS is able to; there are no auditions and no cutdowns outside of competitions.

“Schools that are a lot bigger ... have very selective teams,” Smyrski said, describing Lebanon as more of an underdog.

Junior Finn Ericson is part of the team for the first year. There was a bit of a learning curve.

“It took a while to grasp how to prepare for an event,” he said. As he started to participate in competitions “it was very rewarding.”

The team is now preparing for nationals. They’re students are aware that they are not just representing LHS, but all of New Hampshire.

“The pressure is on,” said Sturges, the junior “codebuster.”

They also have the support of LHS’ student council, greater school community and area businesses.

“The competition at nationals will be intense. Our goals are the same as they have been all year; to be competitive, have fun, and do science well,” Tietjen said. “Seeing the students get this far is very meaningful and memorable. This group has taken our program to a whole new level. They’ve set a new standard for future years.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

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