El Camino Real Ties for 1st Place in Academic Decathlon’s Super Quiz

El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills tied for first place with a Fresno County high school Saturday in the public, question-and-answer portion of the California Academic Decathlon’s tension-filled Super Quiz.

In an extremely tight tournament, the defending state champions and their Fresno competitors finished just one point ahead of a three-way tie for second place with Alemany High School of Mission Hills and Simi Valley High School and Trabuco Hills High School in Orange County.

Officials said the finish was one of the closest in the 18-year history of the state academic tournament and that predicting the overall winner solely from the Super Quiz would be hard. The top five schools beat out 38 others in the Super Quiz’s public portion, in which students from each team took turns trying to answer 10 questions as friends and family cheered.

“It varies. Sometimes the Super Quiz winner is the overall winner and sometimes they’re not,” said Judy Combs, director of the state competition. “These teams try really hard, and Super Quiz is something they work on because it’s a public event.”

El Camino could still win the entire state tournament. Point totals--and the decathlon’s overall winner--will be announced at an awards banquet today. If the Woodland Hills students are victorious, it will be the second year in a row that they have garnered the state title. El Camino was also the state decathlon champion in 1992.

Last year, El Camino won after placing second to Laguna Hills High School in the Super Quiz. On Saturday, there were times the El Camino students weren’t sure they would prevail.

“It was scary for a while near the end of the second round,” said team member Adi Zarchi, who missed two questions during the grueling relay quiz. “When we pulled through in the end, it was really great.”

Both El Camino and Edison High School of Fresno County received 57 out of a possible 60 points. Close behind was Alemany High, Simi High and Trabuco Hills with 56 points. For Alemany, a Catholic school and the only private school in the competition, the second place finish was a wake-up call to rival public schools.

“We have felt like the underdogs because we’re a private school and this has always been looked at like an event for L.A. Unified and public schools,” said Alemany decathlete Penelope Ceja, whose perfect score helped her team keep the lead for most of the competition.

“We’re making our point that we’re here to win and we’re not going to leave quietly,” she said.

Neither is Simi Valley High School, which has been gunning to dethrone El Camino Real for the state champ seat since it won the regional competition last year. Each time the team answered a Super Quiz question correctly, members erupted in cheers.

“We really want to beat El Camino, really bad,” said Simi decathlete Donny Kim, “and now we’re in a good position to get it, I think.”

Neither Beverly Hills High nor Peninsula High in Palos Verdes, both of which represented Los Angeles County, was among the top five schools in the Super Quiz.

The two-part quiz was the final and most grueling event in the two-day tournament. The quiz’s first half included a written multiple-choice test. The second half--the only portion open to the public--was a rowdier, College Bowl-like competition.

This year’s Super Quiz topic was “The Information Revolution/Communication and Culture.”

As part of the entire competition, the nine-member teams took written exams in economics, fine arts, literature, math, science and social sciences. They also delivered impromptu and prepared speeches, wrote essays and participated in interviews with a panel of judges.

The winner of the state Academic Decathlon will go to the national championship, which will be held April 18-20 in St. George, Utah.