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A team from Watkins Mill High School placed third, the team from Sherwood High School took fourth and the student chefs from Gaithersburg High School �earned 10th place.

A cookbook featuring recipes from all the Montgomery County teams is in the works.

Many of the student chefs said they were nervous, particularly with the judges panel including Rudolph Speckamp, one of 62 certified master chefs in the nation.

‘‘Once we got there and they said it’s time to start, all the stress just went away and we gelled as a team and everything worked out perfectly,” said Michael Schmitz, one of the winning chefs.

Seniors Dayvon Addison, Zack Johnson, Ilya Agarunov, Schmitz and alternate Nina Hymes spent about three months formulating their original dishes and making them from scratch.

‘‘I thought that was really impressive, because in high school you may get one little culinary class, but these technical schools do it all day long,” said Juanita Addison, mother of Dayvon Addison. ‘‘To squeeze that talent and come out second place, I thought that was awesome.”

The competition at Howard Community College in Columbia featured 15 Maryland high schools that participate in the career-training program ProStart, created by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.

Teams had 30 minutes to set up and one hour to make a three-course meal. Except for a table and butane burners, teams had to provide their own ingredients and equipment.

The Quince Orchard students brought more than 300 pieces of equipment and about six pounds of ingredients that had to be properly packed and catalogued before the competition, said culinary arts teacher Alma Wiggins.

Their full menu included a crab cake salad, pork medallions with sweet potato chutney and sautéed asparagus and yellow squash and a dessert of Scharffen Berger gourmet chocolate with a raspberry mousse.

Judges commended the team’s culinary finesse, some noting the performance was so smooth it looked choreographed, Johnson said.

The Quince Orchard team also won top honors for its cutting skills.

‘‘There’s a point with every team where they gel and it’s absolutely unbelievable when you realize at that point it’s like a well-oiled machine,” said Scheli Schmitz, mother of Michael Schmitz.

This was Quince Orchard’s second foray into the competition. Last year they took fourth place, and Wiggins said there’s now only one place left to go.

Second place brought the team a variety of scholarship options with a collective value of $91,000, said Maryland Hospitality Education Foundation spokeswoman LaDeana Lichfield.

First place this year went to Howard County’s Application and Research Lab. They served crab-stuffed ravioli and rockfish, pork tenderloin stuffed with Granny Smith apples and a cream-filled chocolate empanada.

The Watkins Mill team was awarded third place for its presentation of Peruvian dishes. Seniors David Martin, Melissa Ogden, Veronica Astorima and sophomore Tyeisha Crutchfield took home $15,500 each in scholarships.

‘‘Everybody should at least try to join a competition at least one time in life,” Martin said. ‘‘Through all the preparation, it makes you better and later in life that’ll help you.”

The theme of the Watkins Mill menu was inspired by Astorima’s recent family trip to Peru, and included salas de camarones or ‘‘shrimp salsa,” casa de la cangrejo or ‘‘house of the crab” and a mango medley dessert.

‘‘It was our first competition like that and was very nerve wracking, but it was an awesome experience,” said Watkins Mill hospitality management teacher Lisa Gilbert.

About 500 spectators packed the stands, Lichfield said.

Though professionalism was key during the competition, Quince Orchard’s Hymes said things got a little chaotic for a few of the other groups. This included one student passing out after accidentally cutting his or her own finger, while somebody in another group set a cooking cloth on fire, she said.

Panic also could have struck the Quince Orchard team when they noticed they forgot their marble slab – essential to prepare dessert – but they improvised by covering the cutting board with foil and putting it on a bed of ice.

Wiggins called the move ‘‘ingenious,” and Addison said he believed the judges noticed their improvisation.

‘‘I teach them the ‘why’ of it so that, should something occur, they could be creative enough to come up with an alternate plan,” Wiggins said.

Since the competition, Johnson and Agarunov said they’ve both got offers to open up their own restaurants after finishing college, while Schmitz said he hopes to open a café and Hymes wants to operate her own pastry shop. Addison said he plans to become a lawyer.

Though the dishes they deliver later on might diverge down different paths, the Quince Orchard chefs said Wiggins, their teacher, will have a special place.

‘‘She’ll have the VIP room and will eat for free,” Schmitz said.

The honored menu

Quince Orchard High School culinary students prepared this winning meal.

Appetizer: Chesapeake crab cake on a mixed green field salad with a vinaigrette dressing and a remoulade sauce.

Entrée: Pork medallions with sweet-potato chutney, sautéed asparagus and yellow squash with a reduction sauce.

Dessert: Scharffen Berger gourmet chocolate with a raspberry mousse.