The Damien Memorial School rocketry team secured a top-20 finish in its first appearance at the prestigious Team American Rocketry Challenge in the Plains, Va.

Led by adviser Jacob Hudson, the newly formed team placed 19th out of 101 teams in Saturday’s competition.

The team will meet with Gov. Neil Abercrombie at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Damien was the first Hawaii team to qualify for the national competition in seven years.

To qualify, the team had to launch a rocket as close to 825 feet as possible and bring down two payloads of eggs within 48 to 50 seconds.

Due to limited open air space on Oahu, the team made their qualifying attempts from Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Sundays when there were no flight operations.