SMART SET: A student team from Taft...

SMART SET: A student team from Taft High School in Woodland Hills finished second in the United States Academic Decathlon Sunday, narrowly bowing to a Texas team that continued the state’s dominance of the prestigious national competition. “We did a great job; we didn’t lose it. They beat us,” Taft student Robert Shaw, 17, said of the Plano East Senior High School crew, which won the Lone Star State its fourth consecutive U. S. title. In all, the Taft kids collected 19 individual medals in subjects ranging from fine arts to chemistry and speech (B1).