Beverly Hill High Gets 'Wild-Card' Spot In State Decathlon

BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- Beverly Hills High School nabbed one of the seven "wild-card" spots last week for the statewide decathlon in March.

The Beverly Hills team scored 45,473.9 points out of a possible 60,000 at the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon to advance to the state competition. South Pasadena High School was announced last Thursday as the champion of the decathlon for the third consecutive year.

The South Pasadena team improved its score for the third year in a row, finishing with a total of 56,462.1 points, surpassing last year's score of 55,373.9, according to the county.

An additional seven "wild-card" teams will be joining South Pasadena at the state competition, held in Sacramento on March 23-26, as a result of their qualifying scores. The advancing high schools, and their scores, are:

• Edgewood, West Covina Unified, 55,981.9;
• West, Torrance Unified, 52,889;
• Mark Keppel, Alhambra Unified, 51,034.6;
• Redondo, Redondo Beach Unified, 46,988.2;
• Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills Unified, 45,473.9;
• Alhambra, Alhambra Unified, 44,934.6; and
• El Rancho, El Rancho Unified, 44,046.4.

Nearly 500 students from 60 teams participated in the county decathlon, which had the theme of World War II and took place Jan. 28 and Feb. 4.

The top individual scorer was Benjamin Lin of Edgewood High School, who took second place in the individual category last year, with a score of 9,497.5 out of a possible 10,000. Lin was followed by Nathaniel Lyons, also of Edgewood High School, with a score of 9,140.2, while Anthony Chen of South Pasadena High School took third place with a total score of 9,041.6.

The winner of the state competition will advance to the U.S. Academic Decathlon taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, in April.

The winner of the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon, which is held separately from the county, was again Granada Hills Charter High School. The school has won the national competition five of the past six years, interrupted only in 2014, when another LAUSD school, El Camino Real, won the title.

-- City News Service, photo credit: © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com