Seven Lakes High School

About Us
Seven Lakes High School is a Division C school located in Katy, Texas. The team was founded in 2009 and is student-led. Both Beckendorff Junior High School and Seven Lakes Junior High School zone to Seven Lakes. WoodCreek Junior High School zoned to Seven Lakes until 2013, and is now zoned to Tompkins High School. The team heavily emphasizes teamwork and a laissez-faire work ethic. The team's motto is per aspera ad astra. The team website can be accessed here. Seven Lakes High School hosts the Seven Lakes Invitational. The invitational page can be accessed here.

History
Seven Lakes Science Olympiad was founded in 2009 by alumni Beckendorff Junior High, whose team was founded in 2007. At the time, two junior high schools in Katy ISD - Beckendorff and Woodcreek - zoned to Seven Lakes. In their first year, Seven Lakes had only one team, primarily led by underclassmen who previously competed at Beckendorff, such as Mimsie and Aurorealise, and their faculty sponsor, Ms. Mullenax. At state, Seven Lakes placed 19th - a solid finish for a first-year team.

The next year, the founders of the team expanded the Science Olympiad program to include two teams of 15 students each. After placing 19th at state the previous year, the captains had a new goal: getting first and making it to Nationals! Their first goal was not realized for several years, but with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, they placed second at state! For the first time in Seven Lakes’s history, they went to Nationals, where they placed 31st.

After making Nationals for the first time, the leaders of the team increased their expectations and set their sights on becoming a top team at nationals. After getting (another) second place finish at state, they achieved their goal and got 12th at nationals!

Next year, the expectations got only higher, and Seven Lakes went to its first out-of-state invitational: Wright State (now held at Centerville High School). At Wright State, Seven Lakes placed 3rd, beating their in-state rival, LASA, who placed 4th, and placing behind only Solon and Centerville. Considering that Solon was coming off a record-breaking national championship from the year before, where they got the lowest score in Nationals history, Seven Lakes’s performance was seen as a huge success, and for the first time, people started considering them one of the premier teams in the country. Their success continued at Nationals, where they placed 6th! Many consider this team the first ‘great’ Seven Lakes team, which showed future teams that being good is possible; you just have to work hard for it.

Coming off of a fantastic 6th place finish at the 2012-2013 Nationals the year before, many expected Seven Lakes to continue their meteoric rise. Seven Lakes returned to Wright State and placed first overall, ultimately winning every invitational they attended that year, both in and out-of-state. After finishing second at State, Seven Lakes advanced to Nationals once more. At Nationals, a series of unfortunate events plagued Seven Lakes, the most notable of which was that User:wrightstuffguy’s Elastic Launched Glider was stepped on while testing prior to competition day (interestingly enough, User:wrightstuffguy and the person who stepped on his ELG became friends afterwards). The damage to the ELG was irreparable given the amount of time left, and Seven Lakes ultimately got 48th in the event when they were on pace to get top 6. Combined with bombs in Technical Problem Solving (42nd) and Designer Genes (34th), Seven Lakes fell from placing in the top three (with a chance at beating Troy and winning first!) to placing a somewhat disappointing 7th, only 4 points behind 6th place Fayetteville-Manlius High School from New York and 24 points behind 3rd place Harriton High School from Pennsylvania.

2018-2019
This year came as a turning point in Seven Lakes, with no remaining competitors from the 3rd place team. The team was largely underclassmen (notably with 51% of the team being sophomores). The team was coming off of its first ever first place at state and still faced the challenge of having only 1 bid in one of the most competitive states in the country. Administration issues at the beginning of the year forced the team to cut a third of its members within the first month of the school year, heavily impacting the morale of the team. However, due to numerous scheduling conflicts within the remaining 30 team members, nearly all of the ‘cut’ members were given the opportunity to compete for the first semester, and all members were given a chance to testoff in December. In January, the team faced many financial issues and were forced to cancel their out of state tournament to the University of Pennsylvania in favor of saving funds for the state and hopefully national tournament. This cancellation destroyed team morale at the time, but by March, team preparation for State was at an all time high. The state team was released a little over a month before the State tournament. Notably, over ⅓ of the State team was comprised of students from Seven Lakes Junior High. For the first time in recent Seven Lakes history, the State Team was identical to the A-Team used during the regular competition season and was majority underclassmen, consisting of 8 sophomores, 2 juniors, and 5 seniors. The team heavily focused on consistency at the state tournament, achieving this goal with the best state score since 2009 in Texas (60) and 21 medals (even with a 5th in Forensics and 11th in WGYN). With such a strong performance at state, there was high pressure to perform well at nationals. The team had less than a month to prepare for nationals, and with AP exams and finals occurring for the 3 weeks right after state, time was limited. After numerous transportation issues, including flight cancellations and delays, the team made it to nationals and found themselves with 4 national medals, the fewest Seven Lakes has received since 2012. However, the team placed very consistently with 11 events in the top 10 and only 5 events outside of the top 20, leading to a respectable 7th place finish, beating out 8th place New Trier High School and 9th place Acton Boxborough Regional High School by 5 and 8 points respectively, and placing 2 points behind 6th place Stevenson High School and 28 points behind 4th place Mason High School. While this was not the placement they were hoping for coming into nationals, the team was content with their placing after having a very bad tournament day and look forward to the next season with hopes of once again placing amongst the best.

Results
Note: During the 2016-2017 competition season, Seven Lakes only took half of a team to Golden Gate

Seven Lakes Users

 * Aurorealise
 * chill
 * FIVE DOLLAR FOOT LONG
 * Juce7
 * Hpfananu (2012-13)
 * kidneyfailure53
 * Lily essence (2010-11 to 2012-13)
 * Mimsie (2009-10 to 2011-12)
 * OfficialSwiftie
 * srsvball95 (2010-11)
 * Sunshine
 * Terpsichore
 * V2
 * RBears6
 * ptkid (2013-14 to 2015-16)
 * KingCyrus20
 * thewrightstuffguy (2012-13 to 2015-16)
 * Adi1008 (2015-16 to 2017-18)
 * birdylayaduck08 (2015-16 to 2018-19)
 * reefownage (2014-15 to 2016-17)
 * Nano1llus10n (2017-18 to Present)
 * Riptide (2017-18 to 2018-19)
 * Justin72835 (2016-17 to 2018-19)
 * bluebird11 (2015-16 to 2018-19)
 * Token (2016-17 to 2018-19)
 * Sleepis4theweak (2017-18 to Present)
 * Knyte_Xjn (2017-18 to 2018-19)
 * Fridaychimp (2017-18 to Present)
 * Excelsior (2018-19 to Present)
 * Epicdragon44 (2017-18 to Present)
 * Sprynder (2017-18 to Present)