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Congrats to LASA and Seven Lakes for advancing to nats.
Looking at the C division results, it seems that subpar performances in scrambler and chem lab led to Clements's 3rd place performance. Scrambler is an event that can easily go wrong, so we can cut them slack on that, but they really needed to place on chem lab since Seven Lakes and LASA took 1 and 2. LASA won first due to an outstanding all-round performance, and Seven Lakes deservedly took the 2nd place spot due to a more consistent performance than Clements.

UnprunedShrub wrote:Congrats to LASA and Seven Lakes for advancing to nats.
Looking at the C division results, it seems that subpar performances in scrambler and chem lab led to Clements's 3rd place performance. Scrambler is an event that can easily go wrong, so we can cut them slack on that, but they really needed to place on chem lab since Seven Lakes and LASA took 1 and 2. LASA won first due to an outstanding all-round performance, and Seven Lakes deservedly took the 2nd place spot due to a more consistent performance than Clements.

I don’t usually say things on this forum, but I just want to point something out for the benefit of future Science Olympiad competitions. Yes, I am from William P. Clements High School, but no, I am not replying to defend our “subpar” performance yesterday. Honestly, what we got is what we got, and I am never more proud to congratulate the two teams, including you, that will be representing Texas at the national tournament.

However, I’ve been watching this forum for three years now, and the post-state forum posts are never happy reads for any school. If a school’s performance for an event is lacking, the two people from that school who did that event are already hurting enough. Clements is in LASA’s state from two years ago, and the people who did Chem Lab and Scrambler on the Clements team this year are feeling badly already. They have their own reasons, so let’s please not bash on them, or anyone else from the third place school in the future, because adding on to the already worst feeling in the world is excruciatingly painful. I would know.

Firstly, I would like to offer my sincere apologies to anyone who was offended by my post.
My intention was never to rub salt into anyone's wounds, but simply to give my take on what occurred.
I hope that Clements will come back next year and prove to themselves and all of the other teams that they will not be defined by one performance, and that they use this as motivation to work harder than ever.

henceagrin36 wrote:

UnprunedShrub wrote:Congrats to LASA and Seven Lakes for advancing to nats.
Looking at the C division results, it seems that subpar performances in scrambler and chem lab led to Clements's 3rd place performance. Scrambler is an event that can easily go wrong, so we can cut them slack on that, but they really needed to place on chem lab since Seven Lakes and LASA took 1 and 2. LASA won first due to an outstanding all-round performance, and Seven Lakes deservedly took the 2nd place spot due to a more consistent performance than Clements.

I don’t usually say things on this forum, but I just want to point something out for the benefit of future Science Olympiad competitions. Yes, I am from William P. Clements High School, but no, I am not replying to defend our “subpar” performance yesterday. Honestly, what we got is what we got, and I am never more proud to congratulate the two teams, including you, that will be representing Texas at the national tournament.

However, I’ve been watching this forum for three years now, and the post-state forum posts are never happy reads for any school. If a school’s performance for an event is lacking, the two people from that school who did that event are already hurting enough. Clements is in LASA’s state from two years ago, and the people who did Chem Lab and Scrambler on the Clements team this year are feeling very badly already. They have their own reasons, so let’s please not bash on them, or anyone else from the third place school in the future, because adding on to the already worst feeling in the world is excruciatingly painful. I would know.

I too predict that this forum will cause hurt feelings, intentional or otherwise.

UnprunedShrub wrote: I hope that Clements will come back next year and prove to themselves and all of the other teams that they will not be defined by one performance, and that they use this as motivation to work harder than ever.

Be careful what you wish for...

UnprunedShrub wrote:...it seems that subpar performances in scrambler and chem lab led to Clements's 3rd place performance. Scrambler is an event that can easily go wrong, so we can cut them slack on that, but they really needed to place on chem lab since Seven Lakes and LASA took 1 and 2. LASA won first due to an outstanding all-round performance, and Seven Lakes deservedly took the 2nd place spot due to a more consistent performance than Clements.

I feel as if this is kind of unfair to Clements. A lot more goes on than just a sub par performance in a couple of events and I feel that putting it that way does not do justice to the amount of work that the students there must have put in. Events do not go perfectly as planned and especially in buildin and lab events, there are a lot of things that are out of the students' control.

I was a member of the beckendorff state team that won second place last year at state and I can confirm that the feeling is terrible. Regardless of the scores that you got, there is still a small part of you that says "what if I didn't mess up in rotor egg drop and got 2nd instead of 3rd? What if I didn't mess up in experimental design and got 3rd instead of fourth? Maybe I'm the reason we failed". I can only imagine how the students at Clements must feel, as they were unlucky enough so that they will not be going to nationals while we still got a second chance.

I feel that now, after state, we should just congratulate all of the teams that participated and wish the two teams that will be going to nationals good luck. I get the feeling that Clements will come back next year in the same way that lasa did and that once again, division C is going to be a bloodbath where only two of three very deserving teams get to go to nationals. Although I am near certain this will never happen, I hope that Science Olympiad changes so that outcomes like this (and stuff like this likely happens in other competitive state like Ohio and Illinois) are minimized. All three of the top teams at Texas would likely place very highly at nationals.

On a more happy note, congratulations to Cinco Ranch JHS for winning second place and coming to nationals.

Yes I know that feeling you're talking about! But of course coming in second isn't bad at all!

iwonder wrote:

MyMomIsOkra wrote:I really dislike Texas Scio tbh, also because they let teams do troll events like Game On

Well, someone's gotta try it out so we all know that it wouldn't make a good national event.

I'm going by Friday to see some of the builds (I go to A&M, so it's close) and now I really want to see someone's mission blow up.

Now that state is over, did anyone's mission blow up?

MyMomIsOkra wrote:

iwonder wrote:

MyMomIsOkra wrote:I really dislike Texas Scio tbh, also because they let teams do troll events like Game On

Well, someone's gotta try it out so we all know that it wouldn't make a good national event.

I'm going by Friday to see some of the builds (I go to A&M, so it's close) and now I really want to see someone's mission blow up.

Now that state is over, did anyone's mission blow up?

Not our mission, but we are blowing up because a certain someone won't be friends with us!

henceagrin36 wrote:

.., but we are blowing up because a certain someone won't be friends with us!

Oh my I wonder who that could be!