Eight students placed at the UIL Academic District meet Saturday, March 26. Anthony Martillotti placed first in Social Studies to the lead the team of Martillotti, Grant Britton and Zach Reimers to a first place finish.

“As a team I think we did really, but of course we all could have improved,” Reimers said. “We had to do a lot of last minute studying at my house.”

In the journalism events, Rachel Sloan took second in Feature Writing and fourth in News Writing. Kristina Jingling finished fourth in Feature Writing and Shelly Spencer placed fifth in News Writing and Editorial Writing. The five awards helped the journalism team take second place overall.

“I was really proud of myself because I didn’t go to any of the practice meets and I placed in both of my events,” Spencer said. “It made me feel really good about myself that I beat everyone else.”

In addition, Allison Rocha placed fourth in Prose Interpretation and Shannon Black took fifth in Ready Writing.

“I was surprised on how I did,” Rocha said. “I had never advanced before. I worked hard on my piece in class and had the rest of the class critique me.”

Students who placed first through third will compete at the regional meet, April 16.

“I feel like I did really well,” Sloan said. “I intend practice a lot more and improve my performance at regionals.”