ANAHEIM

For the third year in a row, students at El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim Hills won first place in the state Science Olympiad, held Saturday at Cal State Long Beach. A dozen seventh- and eighth-graders from El Rancho competed against 25 other junior high schools for a chance to advance to the national competition next month in Chicago, said head coach and science teacher Richard Walker. The competition tested the students’ cognitive abilities in such areas as engineering, earth science and physics, he said.

By the time a school reaches the national level, more than 14,000 schools from across the country and Canada will have participated in the competition.