Clinton Middle, Clinton High take 2025 SCSO championships
Defending champions Clinton Middle School and Clinton High School took home the Division B (middle school, grades 6-9) and Division C (high school, grades 9-12) state championships at the 2025 South Carolina Science Olympiad State Tournament, held on Saturday, March 1, at Presbyterian College.
It was the first state tournament held at Presbyterian College, which hosted events and teams in facilities across campus, including Neville Hall, the Harrington Peachtree Center, Jacobs Hall, Lassiter Hall, Richardson Hall, the Springs Student Center, Bailey Hall, and Edmunds Hall. The awards ceremony, during which individual event medals, overall team trophies and plaques, and the George J. Renwick Sportsmanship Award were presented, was held in Belk Auditorium.
In attendance at the awards ceremony to present medals to competitors were Presbyterian College president Dr. Anita Gustafson, City of Clinton mayor Randy Randall, event supervisor and tournament admin volunteer Amit Prakash, and South Carolina State House representative Doug Gilliam.
The full results of the tournament (including overall school results and individual event placements) can be seen by visiting our “State Tournament” page or by clicking the links below. Thanks to all who attended and an extra special thanks to all who dedicated part or all of their Friday and Saturday, as well as many hundreds of hours of planning and prep since June, to make this event possible in the first place.
In Division B, Clinton Middle school turned in an impressive showing with fourteen first-place finishes out of the twenty-three events held. Their final score of 35 points (remember, low score wins) marked Clinton’s best score in a State Tournament with at least three teams since a 37-point performance in 2017, though GREEN Charter Middle School’s 19-point championship total (2021, in a three-team virtual-only competition) remains the score to beat in that respect.
In their return to Science Olympiad for the first time since 2019, Banks Trail Middle School earned three gold medals and tacked on six silvers and six bronzes on their way to a 67-point second-place performance, a new school-best. They finished four points ahead of GREEN Charter Middle School, who earned three gold medals of their own on their way to a 71-point finish. Debutants Oakridge Middle School also earned three gold medals and took home the George J. Renwick Sportsmanship Award en route to a respectable 84-point total.
The Division C tournament went the way of Clinton High School, who extended their win streak to five consecutive years and earned their best score, 48 points, since 2021 (it was their best score in a full, in-person state tournament since 2013). Ten of the twenty-three events resulted in a gold medal for Clinton, and the team received medals, distributed to the top four event finishers for Division C, in all but two events.
Spring Hill High School took home second place, a new school-best, with gold medals in Optics and Tower. They received 122 points, edging out Academic Magnet High School with 133. Academic Magnet took home the gold in three events: Ecology, Helicopter, and Microbe Mission. Dutch Fork High School rounded out the team awards with a 149-point performance, good for fourth place overall, and touted the state champion Codebusters team. Bishop England High School, who finished in seventh overall with 208 points, received the George J. Renwick Sportsmanship Award as well as a gold medal in Bungee Drop.
Other gold medalists included Lucy Beckham High School (5th) in Geologic Mapping, Catawba Ridge High School (8th) in Write It Do It, Porter-Gaud School (9th) in Chemistry Lab, the Academy for the Arts, Science, and Technology (12th) in Air Trajectory, and Fort Mill High School (13th) in Electric Vehicle and Robot Tour.
2025 State Tournament final results
Division C overall and event results (updated Mar. 4 to fix several minor scoring errors; only positions 7 through 9 affected)
