You're gonna need to invest some $$'s and / or time at this to see the results. I've had a quick look at your competitors using Traffic Travis and suggest that you do the same.
The one upside is that the number 2 site was only registered in May, has 1250 back links and is partially probably where it is due to the 4 .gov or .edu backlinks that it has to the site.
If you could replicate this type of link building strategy then you could be in with a chance of getting into P2 or P3 but P1 for your searchterm is a 3 year old PR3 site with over 12,000 backlinks - you're gonna have to pull something out the bag to become No.1.
I hope that gives you something to go on and best of luck.
PS - OP, If you found this post or any other posts on BHW useful hit the thanks button.