EMMITSBURG, Md., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Mount St. Mary’s University hosted the 2026 Loiello Pitch Competition on Monday evening, allowing student entrepreneurs to present their original business ideas to an accomplished panel of judges. This competition provided students the opportunity to compete for startup funding through a total prize pool of $7,500, generously donated by Paul Palmieri, C’92 and Diane (Loiello) Palmieri, C’83.
Beyond the awards, the event provided students with an invaluable experience, allowing many participants to pitch their ideas within a three-minute time frame in front of a live audience for the first time while learning from judge feedback and the challenges of public speaking.
After a competitive evening of presentations and calculating the judges’ final scoring, we are proud to announce Morgan Ortega, C’28 as the 2026 Loiello Pitch Competition Champion. Morgan will use the $6,000 grand prize to help launch production of her tea brand, Chalm Tea. She has developed two self-brewed tea blends—one for daytime and one for nighttime—designed to provide consumers with a variety of health and wellness benefits. In second place, Sophia Servagno, C’26 earned the $1,000 prize for The Honeycomb, a coffee shop and bakery community that serves nutrient dense, protein and fiber focused baked goods and beverages to a creative community without compromising on palatability. Tied for third place were Najhayne Watson, C’27 and Mary Gutshall, C’26, who each earned recognition for their patentable ideas and will split the $500 third-place prize. Because both contestants are currently in the patent process, details of their ideas cannot be publicly disclosed at this time.
The university congratulates this year’s winners and encourages all participants to use this experience as motivation to keep refining their ideas, learning from the process, and continuing their entrepreneurial journey. We welcome all returning students to compete again next year and look forward to growing the competition with even more student entrepreneurs in the future.
About the Palmieri Center for Entrepreneurship
The Palmieri Center for Entrepreneurship is an innovative student resource that provides skill building, mentorship, and real-world experiences vital to creative critical thinking. Building on the Mount’s liberal arts core, the center’s experiential learning program helps students identify problems, generate ideas and create practical solutions—whether launching a new venture, solving challenges that drive positive change or collaborating to achieve high-impact, team-driven results.
About Mount St. Mary’s University
Mount St. Mary’s University is a private, liberal arts, Catholic university located near the Catoctin Mountain in historic Emmitsburg, Maryland, with a satellite campus in Frederick, Maryland’s second-largest city. The university offers more than 70 majors, minors, concentrations and special programs for traditional undergraduate students, and more than 20 adult undergraduate and graduate programs.
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SOURCE Mount St. Mary’s University
