BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Students and fans celebrated as Team RUSH 27 finished the FIRST in Michigan District event at Waterford Mott High School, March 16-18.
The robotics team from Clarkston High School joined with Blue Alliance members TORQ 2137 from Oxford High School and RoboSapiens 4779 from Cardinal Mooney Catholic to win the meet.
“The competition was tough,” said Coach Kyle Hughes, explaining RUSH had rough qualifying rounds but were picked by Torq for the alliance. “Making it to the finals was surreal.”
The Blue Alliance competed against two of the toughest teams, HOT 67 from Highland Valley Schools and Killer Bees 33 from Notre Dame Preparatory.
RUSH’s alliance won the first of the best two out of three. In the second match, Killer Bee’s and HOT needed to play defense to slow down the Blue Alliance.
They did slow them down, but they were only one gear away from a four rotor, which made it only a three rotor score.
The two alliances were equal in the score but the Killer Bees had control issues at the other end of the field, causing them to die in the way of the climb. It gave the third seed alliance, Team RUSH, TORQ, and RoboSapiens the win by 50 points.
“The crowds exploded with celebration,” Hughes shared. “It was amazing.”

Team RUSH was also awarded the Engineering Inspiration Award, which celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s community.
“Earning the respect of the other teams has become an institution,” the judges shared. “Reaching out to 70 rookie teams with their training toolkit creates unity in the FIRST community. Spirit and a commitment to giving back to FIRST show the heart of this organization. Congratulations to Team #27, Team RUSH (Respect, Unity, Spirit, Heart).”
“This win was one of the highlights in my 21 years,” Hughes said. “It was unbelievable. My heart still pounds when I think of it. At this point in our careers, the highest ‘team’ award we can win is the Engineering Inspiration award, and we clinched that too. To have the two highest awards, was absolutely outstanding.”
Another thrill for Team RUSH was having 180 students from CSMTech Academy at the events cheering them on.
“It was a tremendous showing of Clarkston support,” Hughes said. “They had the entire gymnasium rocking with cheers. It felt like the state championship. Thank you to CSMTech for being so supportive! Coming back to class, the CSMTech students are still all buzzing about the tournament. They had no idea how crazy or exciting the tournament would be or how loud it would be! It was a win-win for both the team and the CSMTech students.”
Team RUSH now focuses on their next tournament in Howell for another FIRST District event, March 30 – April 1.

  Team RUSH 27