It was going to take something more than a global pandemic and switching to a never-before-used virtual format to take down the Athens High School Technology Student Association team at this year’s statewide competition.

Members of the 14-student team placed either first, second or third in 15 events and took the top overall honor while competing against other high schools from across Alabama in categories focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Athens won in 2019 as well, making them back-to-back state champions after the 2020 event was canceled.

“I’m super proud of them,” said Michael May, team sponsor and AHS engineering and design teacher. “We had a really good chance of winning last year, and it got canceled because of COVID. This year, I knew we had a chance to win, but I wasn’t necessarily expecting to because we had fewer students — only 14 — competing. I think the school that placed second had 30 students.”

According to the organization’s website, TSA is a national student organization created to develop skills in STEM as well as business education. May said the AHS TSA team usually travels to Birmingham each April to compete at the annual TSA Conference/Competition, but “obviously, this year, it was virtual.”

“I think it’s great that these kids have an opportunity to showcase their skill sets in an arena they wouldn’t normally get to and get some extra recognition,” May said. “It was a total team effort. It came down to if one person didn’t do what they were supposed to, we wouldn’t have got first place. A lot of these kids are taking AP classes or playing sports with this on top of that stuff, so everyone is busy this year.”

AHS took first place in data science and analytics (Caroline Chesnut and Connor Higgins), photographic technology (Elisabeth Elgin), promotional design (Chesnut), technology bowl (Max Porter, Drew Grose and Higgins) and video game design (Adam Biggs, Charles Bender and William Hobbs).

Other members who placed in different areas of the competition were Tyler Velotta, Krishan Patel, Nick Simmons, Cooper Kiel and Ella Romine.

Porter, president of the AHS TSA, said he and vice president Grose chose which events each member would do while getting their feedback as well. Porter said he joined TSA in seventh grade after hearing about the club during a design class.

“It’s pretty cool,” he said of winning this year’s competition. “Doing it for the second year in a row is a pretty big deal to us.”

“I love putting extra time into this, because it’s my hobby pretty much,” Grose said. “Getting to do it as a club and getting to compete is great. I can get more practice and feel like I’m improving every year.”

Elgin said a lot of things changed with the TSA competition when things moved online, especially the deadline for competition materials being placed a week ahead of the event.

“The Friday before the conference, we were all busy trying to submit our stuff,” she said.

Higgins said the biggest difference he noticed was during a prepared presentation he gave.

“I have done that for three years, and it is so different not to have a live audience in front of you,” he said. “I didn’t actually have the judges visible, so I couldn’t see their reactions.”

AHS TSA sponsor and mathematics teacher Andrew Risner said he wished the school had the video of the “eruption of our celebration” after the team found out it had won the state competition once again.

“It felt amazing,” he said. “In 2019, we weren’t really expecting to get first, we were hoping to place. This year, with fewer students and the competition being virtual, we didn’t know what to expect.”