Knowing that “Et tu, Brute?” were Julius Caesar’s famous last words in Latin was helpful to the students who recently took part in the Latin Certamen at Stony Brook University. Five of the district’s teams made the finals and carried away awards.

Port Jefferson competed against students from 14 schools across Nassau and Suffolk counties in the fast-paced, academic contest that poses questions about Latin grammar, vocabulary, word derivations, Roman life, history, mythology and literature.

Students compete on the level of Latin in which they are enrolled. Two eighth-grade teams competed on Level I, two ninth-grade teams competed on Level II, one tenth-grade team competed on Level III and three teams competed on the Advanced Level.

Coached by Latin teacher Anne Algieri, the Port Jefferson teams who placed at this year’s Certamen included:

First Place - Level IA team
Kasumi Layne-Stasik
Andrew Patterson
Stefano Rabeno
Caelan Schretzmayer

Second Place - Level IB team
Hugo Onghai
Annie Maier
Kate Sommerstad
Hunter Volpi

First Place - Level II team
Aaron Held
Mattea Rabeno
Grant Samara
Peggy Yin

First Place - Advanced Level A team
Emma Gutmann
Ibuki Iwasaki
Cezanne Lojeski
Luigia Than

Third Place - Advanced Level B team
Katie Ambrozy
Ava Schully
Sabrina Schully
Annalisa Welinder