For the third year in a row, a group of Williams Middle School students achieved success at regional and northern state finals for the Science Olympiad.

Taking top honors were Amy Bezek, Amy Peterson, Adel Hussaini, Damon Pham and Hanza Raniwala, with gold medal wins at the northern state finals and regional competition, along with fellow student Soham Gupta, who claimed gold at regionals.

“This is only the fourth year, and we’ve gone to state in the last three years,” said Olympiad adviser Derek Sato. “At state, they had the best showing they’ve ever had. They did good across the board.”

At the regional competition, Sato had two teams of 15 students who competed in 23 events, averaging three or four events each, including building, onsite construction and the science quiz. He said the students worked hard and finished in fifth place over 27 other teams at the competition in early March.

Sato said that when the group went to the northern state competition in mid-April, the team was much smaller but still managed to pull off an eighth-place win ahead of 25 other schools.

“They worked really hard,” he said. “I’m always proud of them.”

Though a lot of schools allow parent input in the building portion of the competition, Sato said his students did everything on their own.

“I don’t do any research or building — it’s just them,” he said. “When they win, they deserve everything — why I’m always proud of them.”