UMD's 2025 Soil Judging Team
The Maryland Terrapins landed a dazzling victory in the 2025 Northeast Regional Soil Judging competition, hosted by the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. The Maryland A Team finished first among a field of 20 teams from a record twelve universities, and the Maryland B team finished right behind them, solidly in second place. Terrapin soil judger Ellie Rogers led the pack with a 1st place finish in the Individual portion of the contest, followed by team members Cole Chapman in 2nd place, Spencer Goldberg in 3rd place, and Kelsey Genovese in 5th place. Also among the top ten contestants were Maryland judgers Anya Olson in 7th place and Zie Goodman in 9th place. The exceptional performance in both the individual and group portions of the competition landed the Terrapins in the remarkable one – two position for the overall standings.
This result means that the University of Maryland (UMD) will be among the group of schools representing the Northeast region at the 64th National Soil Judging Competition to be hosted by NC State University next March. The Terrapin Judgers will take a little time off for a well-earned break before they jump back into preparations for North Carolina. The Terps will be looking to build on their legacy with multiple national championships won throughout the history of the competition.
Practice sites for this year’s contest were in the vicinity of Johnstown, PA, where soils were mostly formed in such parent materials as shale and sandstone residuum and colluvium (some with a thin silty eolian mantle) and from recent alluvial deposits. Also included were anthropogenic soils formed in strip mine spoil (human-transported materials). In the field, students saw Ultisols, Spodosols, Inceptisols, and Entisols, and fragipans, lithic and paralithic contacts were an ever-present challenge. The contest itself was held at the Laurel Hill State Park, about 30 miles Southwest of Johnstown.
