A team of high school students from the New Mexico Military Institute will be in Washington D.C. after they won their regional Science Bowl competition earlier this month.

“We were really prepared for the competition, and we expected to do decently well. So, we were all very happy to of course qualify,” said Steven Xu, an NMMI student.

The competition has been around since 1991, but this is the first time students at NMMI have competed.

They went against other high school students from southeastern New Mexico.

“There are a couple of questions, it’s kind of funny, we were looking at each other like this was under review for the chemistry tests, like literally last week,” said Jonah Pinon, an NMMI student.

Xu added, that the first round was nerve-wracking, “The first round was just super nerve-wracking because the score was so tight. We only won by like five points… four points. That was mostly it was bonded on our end. Then like after that we calmed down and then we sort like pretty much dominated in each round. The first round was just so terrifying for all of us.”

Although they’re excited they’re moving onto the next level, they are not sure how they will do.

“Probably expect to get past like the first round, but not much after that,” said Lucas Tang, an NMMI student.

Now, they’re preparing for the next competition. They’re going up against 68 teams in Washington D.C. April 25th-29th.