Trabuco Hills Takes 2nd in Brain Battle

When the moment of truth came, the team members and their coach trembled in anticipation and clasped hands together at the banquet room table, some bowing their heads as if in prayer and others cutting furtive glances at their rivals the next table over.

Finally, after a few hushed seconds, the announcement came: Trabuco Hills High School of Mission Viejo placed second out of 43 teams in the California Academic Decathlon, an annual test of wits with tension and excitement befitting a sports match.

El Camino Real High School in the San Fernando Valley won the 18th annual competition for the second year in a row, and will represent the state at the national championship next month in Utah.

But for Trabuco Hills, second may as well have been first.

The 12-year-old school made its first appearance in the statewide competition, earning the right after besting perennial powerhouse Laguna Hills High in a county contest last year.

The Trabuco Hills team, made up of four juniors and five seniors, screamed and clapped as they hustled to the podium to accept their big trophy and pose for the cameras in an awards ceremony at the Industry Hills Sheraton, which was filled with the exuberance of a pep rally.

“This feels great,” said Carlos Mladineo, a senior, who also won a bronze individual medal and an $800 scholarship. “I could not expect anything more since so many of us had never done this before. To get to the state competition is the frosting on the cake.”

For senior Evelyn Townsell, the county’s competition was more stressful than the state’s because the team felt pressure to unseat Laguna Hills, which had represented the county for the past eight years and won the state title in 1990 and 1991.

“We had no idea how we were going to do here,” Townsell said, adding that finishing second “was actually best for us.”

Each nine-member team includes three members from three divisions: honors (grade point average above 3.75); scholastic (3.0 to 3.74); and varsity (up to 2.99). The students competed for individual and team honors in the two-day contest held at Cal Poly Pomona, in which Trabuco scored 46,315 out of a possible 60,000--3,186 points behind champion El Camino.

The so-called “battle of the brains” consisted of written exams in economics, fine arts, mathematics, science and social science. The students also delivered short, off-the-cuff speeches on a given subject and sat for interviews.

But the most grueling test came Saturday in the “Super Quiz,” in which they answered multiple-choice questions on the topic “The Information Revolution/Communication and Culture” and then faced off in a College Bowl-like question-and-answer period amid the hoots and hollers of parents and other spectators.

After the “Super Quiz,” Trabuco was in a three-way tie for second, behind first-place teams El Camino and Edison High in Fresno County.

So Sunday dawned with a glimmer of hope that in the final tally Trabuco--which overcame the illness of a couple of members in their two months of preparation, 20 hours per week--just might pull an upset.

But team members, who garnered 22 individual medals, and their coach, history teacher Janet Hooper, said victory didn’t matter to them.

“We weren’t going for the win,” said Hooper, who attributed the rising grades of some members to their preparation for the decathlon. “We were going to see how far we could pull people up.”

Team members were juniors Jerome Carman, Mitchell Khong, Janet Tran, and Jeremy Wiederspahn; and seniors Mladineo, Townsell, Jeff Lewis, Wilmer Khong, and Khanh Ngo.