Taft High Wins State Academic Decathlon

Nine Taft High School students have 50,912.4 reasons to smile at school today. That’s how many points they racked up this weekend to become this year’s winners of the 27th annual California Academic Decathlon.

The Woodland Hills high school team won the top prize at an awards ceremony Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles, beating hometown rival El Camino Real High and 53 other schools from around the state in a marathon of the mind.

The Taft team -- Zachary Ellington, Michael Farrell, Farhan Khan, David Lopez, David Novgorodsky, Julia Rebrova, Atish Sawant, Dean Schaffer and Monica Schettler -- will represent the state next month at the U.S. Academic Decathlon in San Antonio.

Taft coach Arthur Berchin said the students have been studying since last summer for the competition, which consisted of multiple-choice tests in math, science, music, language and literature, economics and art; two speech contests; interviews; and a culminating game-show style Super Quiz on the Renaissance.

“We worked up until the time that they went in to take their test on Friday,” Berchin said. “We never really rested until last night.”

Taft has won the national competition twice before, in 1989 and 1994. If the school wins a third title this year, it will mark California’s fourth U.S. title in a row. Last year, El Camino upset Taft at the state level and went on to win the national championship.

As the results were announced in a ballroom at the Los Angeles Airport Marriott hotel, students fidgeted nervously. Some twiddled their thumbs, others bounced their legs up and down while radio sports announcer Geoff Nathanson teasingly prolonged the agony, naming the top 10 schools in reverse order.

As he prepared to announce the winners, the front two rows of students sat upright in their seats -- Taft in the first row, El Camino right behind them in the second -- and most held hands.

“It was a tough competition,” said El Camino team member Oscar Zisman. “But it’s all right. We still did well.”

His team earned 49,101.5 points.

“Second place is nice, but it’s not first,” El Camino coach Jason Firestein said, while the Taft team posed on stage for photographs with their nearly 6-foot-tall wood-based trophy. Next to him, a row of teary-eyed El Camino students embraced one another and got ready to go home.

Competition between the two schools has raged for years, as Academic Decathlon teams traded the top spot back and forth.

“Now? We go back. We regroup,” said Firestein, whose school has won four national championships. “And we start again for next year.”

Both schools had been highly favored to take the state title, and quite possibly, the national title, because California has won first or second place in the U.S. competition every year except one since the national contest began in 1982.

Moorpark High School in Ventura County, which won the national prize in 1999 and 2003, took third place in the state this year, with 48,036.6 points out of 60,000.

Edison High School in Fresno County placed fourth. Los Angeles Unified School District teams ranked fifth through 10th: Granada Hills Charter, Los Angeles, Palisades Charter, North Hollywood, Marshall and Garfield high schools.

Many of the Taft team members were overwhelmed by the thought of edging out two of the best teams in the country.

“For most of it, I couldn’t feel my hands. I couldn’t see clearly. I was deaf,” said senior Julia Rebrova, 16. “I’m in a horrible physical condition, but I feel better than words can say.”

The Taft team will take a week off before prepping for nationals, which start April 26.

“You know what my best trophies are?” Berchin asked. “My nine students. They’re much better than a big block of wood.”