Members of the UIL academic team competed at the Johnson High School Invitational Meet on Jan. 14. The computer science team placed second and the journalism team placed first overall.

The speech and debate teams competed separately at the BASIS Shavano Invitational.

“The students have been working hard and training for competition,” speech coach Gloria Wolfshohl said. “Truly, the Oral Interpretation and Debate have a great team ‘chemistry’ and cheer each other’s team on. It’s amazing to watch them come together as one unified team when competing with other schools at the invitationals.”

In prose, Wesley Jackson placed second, Jeffery Jarman placed fourth, Siena Fernandez placed fifth, Taylor Baker placed sixth and Mariela Cuellar placed seventh.

Kiara Navarette Perez placed first in Accounting, Sophia Joachim placed fifth in Persuasive and Isaiah Hackett and Isabella Hickey placed third in Informative. For poetry, Grey Silvers placed fifth and Grayson Cook placed fourth.

“We have had some new faces as well as first timers this season in Academics, Speech and Debate,” UIL coordinator Claudia Barthuly said. “They did great for their first time out of the gate. “In other areas, there was a lot of improvement noted and the kids were excited about that.”