There’s no better team of science-loving adolescents in Rhode Island right now than the Kickemuit Middle School Science Olympiad squad.

The students just qualified for their second consecutive trip to the national competition (held this year May 24-25 at Michigan State University) after dismantling all other teams at the state championship earlier this month.

“We’re on a run right now,” said team coach Kerri Krawczyk. “The really extraordinary part of the competition this year was we did 21 events at States, which is all of them, and we got 14 medals…That’s extraordinary.”

For the Science Olympiad, the team with the lowest overall score wins. To put in perspective just how far ahead KMS was of all its competitors, the next closest team to the Huskies was North Cumberland, who finished with 91 points.

Kickemuit finished the state competition with a score of 58.

For Krawczyk, this accomplishment is not one to be taken for granted. While she has over two decades of coaching experience in the Science Olympiad, and took KMS to its first ever national event last year, this year’s team required a comprehensive rebuild.

“I only had four kids remaining from the previous team that went to Nationals last year. I had 17 kids, 8th graders, leave the team last year, and we rebuilt no problem this year, which I thought was going to be a lot harder,” she said. “We had over 30 kids participating throughout the year.”

That was good enough to form two teams of 15 to compete at invitational regional competitions at Brown University and Harvard University, which is where the serious Science Olympiad teams to go hone their skills prior to the state championship. At both events, which attract a huge pool of talent, KMS was the best team from Rhode Island.

Now Krawczyk has to whittle the team down to the most enthusiastic and talented 15 kids, with four alternates, to make the trip to Michigan, where they’ll get to stay in the dorms and get a taste of university life, and interact with other Olympiad teams from around the nation.

Krawczyk said that, traditionally, Rhode Island teams at Nationals typically place in the high 40s out of the 60 teams that attend, but she’s hoping they can exceed expectations.

“It’s so much fun. It’s amazing to watch these kids take this opportunity and rise to it,” she said. “You provide the time and space and structure for them and explain the resources and what they’re doing, and in the beginning they need a lot of help, but eventually you walk into practice and they’re just doing it. Eventually, it’s like they don’t even need me anymore.”

While the team has some funds leftover from last year, they would happily accept any and all donations to help with travel expenses for the upcoming trip. Krawczyk thanked the Bristol Warren Educational Foundation (BWEF) and the Bristol Rotary Club for their continued support of the program.

Checks can be made out to “KMS Science Olympiad” and sent to or dropped off at Kickemuit Middle School.