2013-2014

The Howard L. Goff Middle School Science Olympiad team competed in the New York State finals in Rochester, New York. Thirty-six schools out of over 300 teams from across New York State qualified to compete in the state finals. At the competition, Goff earned medals in 15 events. Medals were given through 6th place. Howard L. Goff Middle School placed 3rd overall in New York State. This is a great accomplishment since it is the highest place we have achieved in 15 years. The team just missed qualifying for the National finals which took place in Orlando. As you can see from the results the students practiced very hard. Many of them stayed after school every day then spent evenings and weekends working on their different events. Congratulations to the team for all they accomplished!

The team would like to thank the many parents who helped out this year. We would like to recognize both Sarah Howard for being our team communicator and Tim Howard for leaving work every Tuesday to practice with the team. Another volunteer who helped our team tremendously was Margaret Phillips who has dedicated one afternoon per week to come and be an event coach for several years. She is incredible because her children have graduated, are in their 20’s and she is still willing to volunteer her time. We appreciate her dedication to Science Olympiad. The team would also like to thank Mrs. Pavlick for her dedication as our assistant coach. She is a very hard worker and we appreciate her inspiration! Mr. Cirincione has been our building coach for over 10 years. We would not be able to accomplish our success in our building events without his guidance and expertise. We especially would like to thank our head coach, Mrs. Vlieg! She has been involved in Science Olympiad for over 19 years. We were able to achieve 3rdin New York state because of her enthusiasm for Science and her ability to inspire us to do our best and work hard when we really didn’t want to. Her love for Science and for each one of us shines through everything she does. Mrs. Vlieg has made the Science Olympiad program at Goff what it is today and no words can express how thankful we are for all the hours of time that she puts into our team every single day.

9th graders: Katelin Grifferty, Tahseen Midani, Elizabeth Vlieg, Sarina Xin, Yang Yang. 8th graders: Albert Chang, Corey Curran, Fritz Howard, Lillian Hutton, Jared Kehmna, Neil Laya, Peter Lewis,Cameron Plowinske, Abigail Radin, Allison Radin

Medal Winners:

Additional top 10 finishes: Shock Value – Katelin Grifferty and Corey Curran Simple Machines – Lillian Hutton and Corey Curran

Top Medalists: Elizabeth Vlieg and Sarina Xin – 4 medals – medaled in each of their events.

Coaches for Howard L. Goff Middle School Science Olympiad team:

Donnamarie Vlieg – Head Coach

John Cirincione and Linda Pavlick – Assistant Coaches

On Saturday, February 8, 2014, the Howard L. Goff Science Olympiad team competed in the Capital District Regional Science Olympiad competition. This year the competition was held at our own middle school with eleven local teams participating. Coach Donnamarie Vlieg was recently named the Capital District Regional Coordinator for Science Olympiad. With the support of the Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Angela Nagle, Mrs. Vlieg was able to host the competition at Howard L. Goff Middle School showcasing the science prowess of our talented students.

At the end of competition, Goff placed first overall, becoming the Capital District Champions. The team earned an unprecedented 35 medals – 16 Gold medals, 11 Silver medals, and 8 Bronze. The first place finish qualifies the team for the New York State competition on April 4 and 5 in Rochester, NY. Congratulations to the superb team and fantastic coaches: Donnamarie Vlieg, John Cirincione and Linda Pavlick.

The Goff team consisted of 42 students this year:

7th graders: Kate Burns, Adam DiCesare, Sydney Lemire, Michal Magidson, Abby Pauli and Nadia Sabo.

8th graders: Zachary Ahearn, Alexandra Bellasario, Nikhil Bhat, Connor Bradt, Albert Chang, Morgan Childs, Corey Curran, Fritz Howard, Lilly Hutton, Jared Kehmna, Charlie King, Caitlin Lallier, Neil Laya, Peter Lewis, Natasha Montiel, Avi Mukherjee, Emily Olds, Cameron Plowinske, Abigail Radin, Allison Radin, Peter Sergay, Jonathan Sills, Peter Tedeschi, Madison Washock, and Shane Wyman.

9th graders: Rebecca Bradbury, Jonathan Eads, Jared Fink, Katelin Grifferty, Daniel Grifferty, Brayden Lappies, Tahseen Midani, Maria Sabo, Elizabeth Vlieg, Sarina Xin, and Yang Yang.