Poms placed second in in division two at the county tournament on Saturday, to end the team’s impressive debut season in division two.

Counties is the highest level of competition for MCPS poms teams. It consists of 25 teams divided into three divisions based on success in previous seasons. In each division, awards are given for first, second and third place performance and captain.

Whitman placed second out of eight. The team is scored by a panel of judges for group execution, choreography, technique and overall presentation. The team had a final score of 616, but Einstein finished with a 648 to beat out the Vikes.

The team won division three counties the past two years and got promoted to division three. In their first season, the team placed first at an exhibition as well as two invitationals consisting of other division two teams.

Senior captain Sofia Luzuriaga cited the increase in competition from division two to division three

“It was our first year in D2 coming from D3 and honestly I’m just happy we placed,” Luzuriaga said. “There was a lot of good and a lot of good teams worked really hard for it.”

At the end of next year’s school year the county will add up each team’s scores from all their competitions, and the two teams with the highest scores will move up a division and the two with the lowest will move down.

With two first place finishes and one second place finish, it is extremely unlikely the team will move down a division, and if the team has an impressive season next year they will likely be promoted to division one.