Taft Wins Top Spot in City Academic Decathlon : Education: West High of Torrance takes the honors among 67 schools in county division. State competition will be next.

Taft High School in Woodland Hills won the Los Angeles Unified School District academic decathlon Tuesday, while West High School in Torrance captured top honors for the third consecutive year in a separate decathlon competition among 67 county high schools.

Taft outscored 54 other teams to earn the right to represent the city in a statewide tournament in March. West High will represent the county.

Taft scored 47,879 points out of a possible 60,000, well ahead of University High School in West Los Angeles, which scored 44,713 points and finished second. El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, last year’s champion, came in third with 44,180 points.

West racked up 45,794 points, more than 3,000 points ahead of second-place William S. Hart High School in Santa Clarita.

Each decathlon team has nine members, three with A, three with B and three with C grade-point averages. The competition tests students in six academic subjects ranging from fine arts to physics. Contestants must also write essays, deliver prepared and impromptu speeches and submit to personal interviews.

Besides winning the city championship, Taft students took 44 individual medals in subjects ranging from history to math. In the speech category, eight of the nine Taft students won medals, seven of them gold.

“Unprecedented--I’ve never seen this before,” said Taft coach Michael Wilson, as parents and school officials cheered loudly at an awards banquet at the Westin Bonaventure hotel in downtown Los Angeles. “I mean, I knew we were good in speech, but seven!”

The team also took home the Super Quiz trophy for its performance in the “College Bowl” part of the competition, which was held Nov. 14.

The victory was Taft’s third since the competition began 11 years ago. In 1989, Taft took first place in the national decathlon tournament.

Taft team captain Chris Hoag, 17, said the months of cramming for a common goal forged unity in a group that began with competitive feelings among some team members.

“We’ve become very close,” he said. “When you put that much trust in someone, it brings you together.”

In repeating as the county gold medal winner, Torrance West High exceeded its score from last year by more than 800 points. Hart’s team, which finished with 42,443 points, won the silver medal for the second straight year.

Wilson High School from the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District placed third with 41,618. Diamond Bar High School from the Walnut Valley Unified School District was fourth with 41,291 and Beverly Hills High School was fifth with 40,413.

Torrance West, a perennial decathlon power, also saw team members capture six of 12 overall individual student awards. Nikhil Chanani, Edward Chao and Jeff Wu took first place in their divisions.

About 600 students representing 67 high schools county participated in the competition, which was held Nov. 14 at San Gabriel High School.

In March, about 45 teams from around the state will gather in Stockton to vie for the honor of representing California in the national contest. The national tournament will be held in Phoenix in April.