The BYU Reserve Officer Training Core found success at the Sandhurst Competition at West Point from April 28 to May 4.

The ROTC has competed in the Sandhurst Competition almost every year since 2003.

"You learn a lot of skills doing it," BYU Cadet Dustin Miner said." You learn a lot of team-building skills that you will need in the army."

The competition is supposed to last under four hours, but to get complete points, teams should be finished within three.

BYU's team completed the course within three and a half hours, which qualified them for 14th place out of the 42 participating teams.

Lt. Ryan Mundy said there are only four university ROTCs selected for the competition. The rest of the teams were from the Navy and Air Force.

Out of the five years that BYU's Army ROTC has competed, only once did they not win first place.

"Texas beat us once," Miner said.

All the teams that competed in the Sandhurst Competition were required to have eight male members and one female member.

"It didn't really intimidate me too much because I'm very competitive, so I like the challenge," said Cadet Kristen Heuer, BYU's female team member.

Being that it is her first semester in the ROTC, Heuer had never competed before.

"It was a lot of fun. The training was hard ... but I love being part of the team," Heuer said. "It's like another family."

Heuer said competing in the Sandhurst competition unified the team and taught them how to be supportive to each other.

In order to become a member of the team, cadets had to try out.

Once they were selected, they trained Monday through Friday starting at 5:30 a.m. They also trained Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Mundy said the team started all of their workouts with a prayer.

The ROTC prepared for the competition by running up Y-hill and around Timpview High School and by working out their upper bodies.

"Our instructors here are just amazing," Miner said. "Without them, we wouldn't have a whole lot of ground to stand on."