Northampton has strong showing at State Odyssey of the Mind Tournament

The team from Northampton High School (Pictured Left to Right: Coach Brad Ford, Kiera Budenos, Reymundo Martinez, Daniela Siegrist, Maliyah Jones, Kayla Hicks, not pictured Autumn Buckley) 

Over this past weekend a team from both Northampton Middle and High School traveled to Tuscarora High School in Leesburg, Va. to compete in the 2023 Virginia State Odyssey of the Mind Tournament. This tournament brought together all of the different 6 regional champion teams from all across the state to compete and earn one of two spots for each problem and division to represent Virginia at the 2023 Odyssey of the Mind World Finals being held in Michigan in May. After a long and grueling day of competing, our teams represented Northampton County with great success and their hard work was rewarded. 

Northampton’s Middle School team also achieved an impressive third place finish in Problem 5 “The Most Dramatic Problem Ever!” Division 2, narrowly missing out on second place and qualifying for World Finals by only a few points. This marks only the second time in the history of the Northampton County Odyssey of the Mind program that our Middle School team has placed at States. The judges were thoroughly entertained by the team’s problem-solving skills, creativity and humorous skit.

In addition, our High School team tackled a difficult problem that required them to showcase their engineering skills by building a vehicle to complete various tasks. Despite the tough problem, our team emerged victorious, achieving a first place finish in Problem 1 “The Pirates and Treasure” Division 3. This is the first time a team has placed first in any problem at the state level for our Northampton County. As a result, they are now eligible to compete at the World Finals in May where teams from around the country and world will compete to become the world champion.