Buena Wins Academic Decathlon

In a seesaw battle of brains, Ventura’s Buena High School pulled ahead of Thousand Oaks High on Saturday to win the Ventura County Academic Decathlon and advance to the state finals next spring.

Buena’s victory brought to an end the four-year dominance of Thousand Oaks High, which had represented the county in the state finals since 1986.

Buena topped 15 schools in the competition, earning first-place honors in science, economics and fine arts, for a total of 38,869 points overall. Its winning margin was 53 points.

Buena also won the Super Quiz portion of the daylong competition, a spirited showdown before several hundred cheering students and parents in the gymnasium of Oxnard’s Rio Mesa High. The topic for the Super Quiz was space exploration.

Thousand Oaks, which finished first in mathematics, language and literature and the essay and interview portions of the competition, finished with 38,816 points.

“It was very stressful,” said Thousand Oaks senior Mark Strachan, 17. “It’s much harder than the SAT.” The Scholastic Aptitude Test is a college entrance examination.

“At least when you finish the SAT, you leave without feeling shredded,” said Thousand Oaks senior Greg Hurlock, 17.

Simi Valley High finished third with 35,286 points.

The competition started Saturday morning when nine students from each school began a battery of tests in nine subject areas, including a 10-minute speech and an interview based on personal information that students provided to test officials some months ago.

Each team was composed of three A, three B and three C students.

In the Super Quiz, students were called before the audience 15 at a time to answer questions about the history of space exploration. One of the easier multiple-choice questions, for example, asked how long the Russian spacecraft Sputnik, which carried the first animal into space, remained in orbit--22 hours, four days, five months, one year or 16 months. The answer: five months.

The next group of 15 answered another question.

“The luck of the draw is a lot of it,” said Thousand Oaks Coach John Pearson.

Questions were read aloud by county schools Supt. James F. Cowan and shown on a screen to the audience. The answers were revealed as soon as students had finished answering each question. Monitors flashed cards showing each student’s points, to whoops and cheers from the audience.

“It was like a whole day of final exams,” said exhausted Hueneme High senior Monica Justus, 17. “But the Super Quiz was so much fun--just the thrill of getting the right answer.”

“We’re just so glad it’s over!” shouted Hueneme senior Nhat Mach, 17.

Most of the students began studying for the competition at the beginning of the school year; others met over the summer, reading material recommended by state officials.

Some schools, including Newbury Park High, have classes in which students prepare for the test and receive school credit. Newbury Park finished ninth overall.

Despite the intense preparation, said Newbury Park senior Robby Robinson, 18, “you don’t really know what to expect. Like in literature, we were questioned on such a broad range of short stories and authors.”

At most schools, including Nordhoff High in Ojai, decathlon teams meet at lunch or after school about once a week at the beginning of the year, and more often as decathlon day approaches.

“For us, it’s just after-school fun,” said Nordhoff junior Jen Leonard, 16. Team members said their final preparations were thrown off because Coach Kristen Pelfrey was sick the week before the competition. The school finished next to last.

The final results were announced at a banquet in the Rio Mesa cafeteria after the competition. The state finals are scheduled for March, 1991.

Despite the prestige in winning the event, some students said their primary goal was not to make it to the finals but to learn for learning’s sake.

“It’s really an accomplishment to finish the test,” said Newbury Park junior Jennifer Miyasaka, 16. “I certainly have learned a lot. And I got to meet all these people.”

An L.A. SQUEAKER: B22