The Palo Alto High School Science Bowl team will be going to the national competition after its victory in the regional competition last Saturday, Feb. 2, at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Science Bowl is a buzzer competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy in which teams from all regions of the United States answer questions about mathematics and physics, earth and space science, biology, chemistry and energy. The national competition this year will take place from Apr. 25 to Apr. 29 in Washington, D.C.

The Paly Science Olympiad club organizes a team every year to participate in this contest.

“I feel really good [about our victory] because we’ve been practicing all year,” said senior Jeffrey Ling, Science Bowl team member and Science Olympiad club co-president. “It’s always been my dream to make the national [competition].”

Junior Jared Filseth, another team member, similarly anticipates the national competition.

“I’m looking forward to going to nationals and facing harder teams,” Filseth said.

The B Team, Paly’s secondary Science Bowl team, did not compete in the regional competition because only one team was admitted this year, according to Ling.

Filseth felt that one of the strengths of the Paly team is that each member specializes in a category.

“We’re very specialized,” Filseth said. “For example, [sophomore] Gary [Chen] answers most of the earth science questions while [sophomore] Jasen [Liu] answers most of the biology questions.”

Despite the team’s strong teamwork, victory did not come easy.

“During the fifth preliminary round, we were losing 42-0,” Filseth said. “But we came back during the second half and won that round.”

Ling stated that the team will continue to practice in the Science Resource Center every Thursday for about two hours in addition to studying individually.

“We need to get into harder stuff,” Ling said. “There’s a lot of room to improve, and the teams at nationals are all really good.”