Amherst High students lauded

Several Amherst Central High School students will attend state and regional competitions in the near future after placing high in regional competition on Feb. 10.

Amherst High's Science Olympiad team placed second at the Science Olympiad Regional Competition and has qualified for state competition on March 9-10 at West Point Military Academy.

Members of the team were officially scored in 18 different events, in which 27 other teams competed. The team's overall performance included 17 top-10 finishes, 12 of which earned Amherst students medals by placing within the top five, and four first-place finishers.

Team members are Brett Bush, Alejandro Carbonara, Julie Halm, Syed Haseeb, Amanda Kapus, Junghyun Kim, Sam Koury, Ian Kraus, Dave Molik, Jared Reisweber, Jerry Ren, Nick Reynolds, Justin Sein, Susan Song, Andrew Wong, and Kai Zhong.

Also advancing to state competition the same day were members of the school's Future Business Leaders of America. Corrin Zaccagnino (first place, decision making), Amanda Shisler (third place, job interview; first place, marketing), Maria Manunta (first place, public speaking), Harrison Singer (first place, public speaking II), Matt Krajna (first place, accounting) and Alex Zaccagnino (second place, introduction to business) excelled at regional competition.

The school's mock trial team also won its case with St. Francis "B" on Feb. 10 and should ensure the team moves on to the third round on March 3. The attorneys were DiAndrea Lewis, Jon Schutrum and Ken Schmidt. The witnesses were Austin Borek, Jen Burke and Molly Roach.