Alemany Wins 3rd Straight Trip to Academic Decathlon State Finals

After months of giving up holidays, weekends and evenings, and after one intense week between competition and the announcement of the results of this year’s Southern California Private School Academic Decathlon, the three-time winning team from Alemany High School got a well-deserved break Monday.

The nine-member team took the annual competition by storm, earning a trip to the March state finals against the top California public and private schools for a third consecutive year.

The team from John Burroughs High in Burbank also earned a berth in the state decathlon, although it came in second to West High in Torrance in the Los Angeles County public schools’ competition.

County Office of Education spokesman Rick de la Torre explained that John Burroughs qualified for the next rung of competition by virtue of its high scores in individual events.

The county competition covered public schools outside the giant Los Angeles Unified School District. El Camino Real of Woodland Hills took the LAUSD title--its fifth.

County and city winners got the news Thursday. The Alemany squad, which won the Super Quiz portion of the event held on its Mission Hills campus Feb. 7, had to wait until Saturday to find out it had won the overall competition among private schools.

In between, the students sweated it out, wondering if they should bother studying for the state finals March 20-22 at Cal Poly Pomona or if they were finished for the year.

“They felt optimistic,” head coach Janie Prucha said Monday. “It was a good chance for them to catch up on their other classes.”

She said the fact that the school hosted the competition this year probably gave the students a slight advantage, if only because they felt more comfortable on their home turf.

Another possible factor in their success, she said, was that each time they compete, the tradition becomes more entrenched throughout the school and the students know what to expect the next time.

“The more you do it, the more you know what you’re doing,” she said.

Alemany students also earned individual medals--21 gold, 18 silver and 10 bronze, as well as gold medals in the Honors, Scholastic and Varsity individual all-around categories.

The team earned 46,020 points out of a possible 60,000, outscoring second-place winner St. Francis of La Canada Flintridge by more than 4,000 points. In taking the city title, the El Camino Real team racked up 50,099 points.