Valley School Is 2nd in Academic Decathlon

In a close contest between two scholastic heavyweights, El Camino Real High School placed second Sunday in the 15th annual U.S. Academic Decathlon, losing to a team of razor-sharp rivals from Texas.

The Woodland Hills whiz kids, representing California in the two-day contest, captured 34 medals at an awards banquet Sunday. But they lost the contest overall by just 285 points out of a possible 60,000--a harsh blow for students viewed as the top contenders entering the event.

The winning team was J. Frank Dobie High School from the Houston suburb of Pasadena, Tex. Dobie scored 49,835 points, with El Camino gaining 49,550.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow,” said El Camino’s head coach David Roberson of the second time in four years that an El Camino team has seen a Dobie team win the No. 1 spot. “It was just so close.”

“I think the reason we’ve done so well all year is because we expect so much from ourselves, so this is disappointing,” said El Camino team member Sarah Sabolek, who covered her face with her hands and cried after learning of the narrow defeat.

“It’s better than being beaten by a lot, but it’s so close that it makes me wonder how we would have finished if only I had done better in an interview or studied for another hour,” she said.

The results were announced Sunday at a hotel ballroom in Atlanta before hundreds of cheering students, parents and teachers from the 40 schools that competed in this year’s national contest.

The grueling competition took its toll on El Camino’s Matthew Backes, who collapsed onto the floor shortly before the awards ceremony was about to begin.

Backes, who hadn’t been feeling well for the past few days, had to be helped out of the ballroom where he was examined by two doctors who were relatives of his teammates.

A pair of paramedics were later called to the hotel to examine the pale youth as he sat in a chair with his head bent, sipping a glass of ice water.

“I think his nerves just got to him,” said Sharon Markenson, El Camino’s co-coach. About half an hour later, Backes was escorted back into the ballroom where he rejoined his teammates. “I’m OK,” he said.

Other top teams included those representing Arizona, which placed third with 46,980 points; Massachusetts, with 46,290 points for fourth place; and Alabama, which took fifth place with 45,995 points.

The Atlanta finals culminated hundreds of hours of rigorous training for El Camino’s students and coaches, who gave up hobbies, after-school jobs and time with friends since before the school year began last fall in the hope of becoming national champs.

And what a year it was.

The team began by sweeping the Los Angeles Unified School District finals in November, defeating John Marshall and Taft high schools, which have both won the national title twice. Next, the El Camino team flew to Fresno in March, where it captured the state championship, beating out its Southern California rivals from Orange County.

In the final leg of their brain-draining journey, they arrived in Atlanta Wednesday to compete in the 10-event national competition, which tested them in areas such as public speaking, fine arts, math and economics.

As the awards ceremony wore on Sunday, it became clear that the contest was between El Camino and Dobie. But the drama in the room heightened before the results were announced as students from each team made countless trips to the podium to collect individual medals.

The El Camino students became subdued when they failed to place in the interview and math portions of the contest, but perked up when six of them garnered medals in the social studies category.

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“It’s neck and neck right now,” Roberson said. “We’re not blowing anybody out.”

Across the room, their rivals from Texas were equally racked with anxiety.

“It’s not good,” said Richard Golenko, Dobie’s head coach. “It appears that California is winning more medals, but you never know for sure who’s going to win based on the medals.”

A good omen came for Golenko’s team when it was named the overall winners of the Super Quiz, a two-part contest composed of a multiple-choice test that the competitors take in private and another round of questions that they answer in front of hundreds of wildly cheering family members and coaches.

El Camino tied for first place with Arizona Saturday in the public portion of the event, but when both parts of the contest were tallied, Dobie came out on top with 5,700 points out of a possible 6,000. El Camino placed second with 5,435 points.