A group of Northern Lehigh School District students got the top prize during the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21’s first ever Elementary Reading Olympics competition.

Teams composed of students in fourth and fifth grade from both public and private schools participated in the event Thursday afternoon at Northern Lehigh Middle School.

Reading Olympics is a national competition in which schools send teams to answer trivia-type questions on 45 books they had to read from October to spring.

The competition consisted of three rounds of 20 questions, and the team with the greatest number of points after all three rounds is declared the champion.

When all was said and done, the Northern Lehigh Pageturners compiled a competition-best 69 points to nab the gold medal.

Team members were Patrick Conway, Samantha Mack, Andi Szwast, Colton Oberle, Cassidy Snyder, Ada Porobenski, Kaylee Sigley, Madilynn Husack, Colin Karetsky, Adriana Danyluk, Ella Tosh, Kairi Handwerk and Anthony Hanna.

Samantha, a fifth-grader, said the competition was “just great.”

“We got to read, which is the most important part,” Samantha said. “Just what really pushed us was at the middle school they won first place, so we were like ‘let’s beat them,’ and we should get first place, too.”

For Andi, a fourth-grader, it was all about bragging rights.

“My sister’s on the middle school team, so we wanted to show them that we could be just as smart and just as intelligent of a Reading Olympics team as they were,” Delaney said.

Patrick, a fifth-grader, said he enjoyed the suspense of waiting for the winning team to be called.

“I enjoyed the competition,” Patrick said. “I loved how everybody was just sitting there waiting for the winners to be announced, and we won.”

Samantha said it took some getting used to.

“It was a little nerve-wracking at first,” she said. “But, once we got our practice round, but then we kind of got the hang of it.”

Shawn Green, who served as coach of the winning team, said he was “very proud” of the students.

“The students worked very hard, and practiced many days after school in order to prepare for this competition,” Green said. “They were not about to be outshined by their middle school team, who won their competition earlier in the year.”

The East Penn Pegasus finished second with 62 points, while the East Penn Spine Crackers came in third with 61.5 points.