Laguna Hills High Wins Battle of Scholars : Education: The team will compete in the national Academic Decathlon in April. It took second in that contest last year when it also was the state champion.

For the second year in a row, Laguna Hills High School in Orange County won the California Academic Decathlon, beating out Palisades High School from Los Angeles in the competition considered the Super Bowl of academic contests.

The Laguna Hills team, a perennial winner in county, state and national competition, scored a total of 44,582 points out of a possible 60,000 to ace out Palisades by more than 1,400 points. West High School of Torrance won third with 42,769 points.

The Palisades score of 43,161 may change upward pending a computer recount of one of its students’ scores--but that change would not be enough to alter the outcome of the competition, according to Jane Moore, event spokeswoman.

The winners were honored Sunday at a banquet at the Riverside Convention Center after the three-day event, which attracted 45 schools and 400 students in grades 11 and 12.

The decathlon was created 20 years ago by an Orange County school official to test and encourage students in a variety of subjects, including economics, essay-writing, fine arts, literature, math, speech, science, social science and interview skills.

West High won the Super Quiz, which is considered one of the toughest events in the decathlon. Patterned after the television game show “Jeopardy!” the topic this year was space exploration. Palisades High took second place, and Laguna Hills, third.

Coaches of the winning schools included Roger Gunderson and Kathy Lane, Laguna Hills High; Rose Gilbert and Don Walz, Palisades High; George Floratos and Bruce Thompson, West High.

Winners in the division for schools with under 1,000 students included Del Oro High School of Placer County, 38,240 points; Oakridge High School of El Dorado County, 36,140 points; and Pleasant Valley High School of Butte County, 36,090 points.

Names of individual student winners were not released pending a confirmation of scores.

The national finals will be held in April at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Last year, Laguna Hills won second place in that national contest.