Marshall High Scholars Aim for State Title

With the championship of the Los Angeles Unified School District already under its belt for the second year, Marshall High School’s academic decathlon team is to fly to Sacramento today for a statewide battle of brains.

The team from the Silver Lake-Los Feliz area school is to compete Saturday with young scholars from 45 other California schools in a series of written and oral tests on topics ranging from Renaissance art to constitutional law. The winner in the state Academic Decathlon is to be announced Monday.

“I’d say we have a good chance,” said Marshall coach David Tokofsky. “It is hard to imagine any other team working as hard.”

Tokofsky said he was encouraged by Marshall’s win over Beverly Hills High School in a recent scrimmage. Beverly Hills won the state title the last four years and is in the competition again, representing public schools in Los Angeles County other than those in the City of Los Angeles.

Competing Saturday for Marshall will be Ethan McKinney and Ben Wolf in the A-student category, Matthew Elstein and Howard Wu in the B-student group, and David Florey and Christopher Nichelson in the C category.

Silva Darbinian, Gideon Javier and Stephanie Shelton will take the tests as alternates, but their scores will count only if a first-string member in their category doesn’t finish. Team members Susie Kim and David Chan will also be making the trip to help out, Tokofsky said.

The state championship team will go to Texas for the April 25 national competition. National winners are expected to be invited East to meet President Reagan.