Upper St. Clair Students Fare Well In International Competition

UPPER ST. CLAIR, PA - Mexico, Poland, Singapore, China and - Upper St. Clair? Yes, two Upper St. Clair teams finished in the top 10 in a recent international competition, the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals at Iowa State University.

In their fourth trip to the OM World Finals, Upper St. Clair High School students earned third place for their performance and seventh place overall. Their team, which competed in the division three (high school) level for the first time, includes ninth graders Victoria Cuba, Brianna Lin, Joseph Markovitz, Max Murtough, Sammie Seewald, Constantine Tripodes and Eric Wang.

A team of Boyce Middle School students earned a ninth place finish in division one (elementary). The team is comprised of fifth graders Jake Casares, Anastasia Gzikowski, Esha Lathia, Owen Mucho, Ben Murtough and Ben Seewald, and fourth grader Peter Markovitz. This marked the team’s first time competing in the OM World Finals.

Both teams were coached by Meridith Markovitz, Laura Murtough and Stacey Seewald. The teams advanced to the world finals by placing among the top two at both the regional and state tournaments in the spring.

“The teams’ journeys were the result of eight months of hard work and collaboration to solve an open-ended problem and create an eight-minute performance with no assistance from coaches, teachers, family or friends,” Murtough said in a district release.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international STEAM program that teaches kids how to tap in to their creativity so it can be applied to real-world problems. In the program, students solve one of five long-term problems. They bring their solutions to competition on the local, state and world levels where they are judged on creativity and risk-taking.

Photos via Upper St. Clair School District.

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