By Matt Ulmer –
Home Sweet Home for the hardworking Rocket Team.
Penn Manor students look forward to the outcome of football games or basketball results but ever since last year’s international victory for the rocket team, students are anxious to see how the “New Crew” performs.
This past weekend six teams from Penn Manor brought their talents to Manassas, Virginia.
Although they didn’t cinch the national title, they had a great showing.
“We actually performed the best as a school ever,” said Osmolinski.
Here’s how they did.
Team 1: 10th Place (Alex Cauler, Mark Raymond, David Herr, Jonathon Martin)
Team 2: 50th Place (Maggie McClintock, Jesse Burkholder, Eric Keefer, Ian Tahmasbi, and Jake Schick)
Team 3: 55th Place (Andrew Lobos, Cate Shipley, Gabbie Bauman, and Chris Cuascut)
Team 4: 27th Place (Lars Anderson, Haley Blazer, Peter Ashworth, and Alec ORourke)
Team 5: 45th Place (Zach Kauffman and Brendan Woods)
Team 6: 25th Place (Jesse Stoner, Tom Sowers, Wyatt Shiffler, Curtis Herr, and Shawn Stone)
The Contest showcased 600 qualifying teams from all over the country.
Penn Manor had six teams of the final 100. The teams had to deal with various weather problems and even a tornado warning.
The scores in this year‘s competition have tig htened and point gaps between teams were smaller this year than any other year. This actually made the competition easier as a whole.
However, the entire group from Penn Manor did better than any other year with scores ranging from 14 to 39.
Brian Osmolinski said he received compliments from other coaches and aerospace executives on the performance of the team. He feels Penn Manor was represented very well.
This year’s teams had very big shoes to fill not to mention many rules changed.
“This year the recovery system had to be a 15-inch parachute,” said Osmolinski.
The goals for next year are already stacking up. The amount of underclassmen bring a promise of good things ahead.
“What we’re gonna work on is more team consistency and all members are at all practices,” explained Osmolinski.
Some people wonder what they do with the remaining rockets.
Saturday, June 11th the Rocket Team will launch the remaining rockets at Manor Middle school from noon until 5 p.m. There will be free food.