For the second year in a row, Ishaan Lal, a student at Eyer Middle School in Macungie, did the incredible. He beat out 200 other intermediate and junior high school students to take first place in the 32nd annual Lehigh Valley MATHCOUNTS® Regional Competition, sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers.

Daniel Li, representing Bethlehem’s Nitschmann Middle School, took second-place honors also for the second time.

Winning the day-long competition required solving more than 30 difficult math problems on two written examinations in the morning, and then competing on stage with nine other finalists in a lightning-round elimination session in the afternoon.

Lal bested three competitors, correctly answering a total of nine problems.

The top 10 finalists besides Lal and Li were: Alex Adams and Neil Deshmukh, Moravian Academy, Bethlehem; Will Corvino, Southern Lehigh Middle School, Center Valley; Gayoung Lee, Victor Cai and Alex Tang, Springhouse Middle School, Allentown; Joshua Ye, Orefield Middle School, Orefield; and Ruiqi Wang, Nitschmann Middle School, Bethlehem.

The top winners can choose from among scholarships for mathematics courses provided by Moravian College, Lafayette College, Lehigh Carbon Community College and Northampton Community College.

The top three female competitors received a free course in math or science from Cedar Crest College for both their junior and senior years in high school. These awards went to Gayoung Lee, Springhouse Middle School; and Rhea Malbotrac and Zeha Skandan, both from Moravian Academy.

Considered to be the “Olympics of Math,” the competition this year attracted students from 26 schools in the four counties of Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe and Carbon. The top four regional finalists - Lal, Li, Adams and Corvino - won the right to participate in the state competition to be held in Harrisburg March 18 and 19. Joining them will be all the members of the first-place Moravian Academy team, coached by Alison Overdorf. The team earned a total of 51.25 points in the morning team round, which required solving 10 math problems in 20 minutes.

Nitschmann Middle School, coached by Nadine Novatek, took the second-place team honors with a score of 48.5; and third place went to Springhouse Middle School, coached by Kevin Hallman, with a final score of 46.5.

The most improved team was Saucon Valley Middle School, rising from 16th place in 2015 to eighth place this year.

Approximately 40,000 students, representing more than 5,500 schools will participate in 2016 MATHCOUNTS® competitions nationwide.Pennsylvania state winners will go on to the national competition in Washington, D.C., May 7 to 10, with the Raytheon Corp. as the title sponsor.

The National Society of Professional Engineers, which partners with state engineering societies, is the founding sponsor of the event, designed to develop math proficiency in middle school students.