Moorpark High Wins National Decathlon

Moorpark High School in Ventura County won the national Academic Decathlon championship Sunday, continuing Southern California’s dominance of the country’s premiere scholastic contest.

Moorpark beat teams from 38 other states, including its leading rival from Texas. The team scored 50,225 points out of a possible 60,000 in the 18th annual two-day competition, which tested students’ knowledge in topics ranging from algebra to ancient India.

Moorpark’s squad--junior Ari Shaw and seniors Arturo Barragan, Alexandra Dove, John Ellis, Valerie Lake, Nick Lange, Mitul Patel and Rebecca Wershba--jumped up and down and hugged each other when their school name was announced as the national champ.

“I can’t comprehend the magnitude of what just happened,” Shaw said. “I’m just ecstatic. This is a thousand times more intense than state.”

As the decathletes made their way to the stage, their multiple medals clanking around their necks, about 100 parents, teachers and students held banners, applauded and screamed in unison, “You’re wonderful!”

Lake’s mother, Paula, said the team has become a family. “They love each other so much and they’ve worked so hard,” she said. “They really deserve this.”

Since the decathlon began in 1982, teams from California have placed in the top three every year but one. Teams from the Los Angeles Unified School District have won first place five times.

For nearly a year, the students from Moorpark Unified School District devoted their lives to preparing for the event. They took more than 500 sample tests, rehearsed their speeches more than 100 times, did about 30 practice interviews and read both required novels four times each. During spring break, they studied for a cumulative 95 hours.

“It’s an amazing group of youngsters,” said history teacher Larry Jones, who has coached the team for seven years. “It’s been a dream to win, and the dream came true today.”

In February, Moorpark placed first in Ventura County’s contest. Then at the state competition in March, the team beat the reigning national champions from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills.

But at the ceremony Sunday at the West Coast Anaheim Hotel, members said, they didn’t expect to hear their name.

Still, as they waited, students and their coaches passed around good luck charms, including a coconut, a teddy bear and a can of Spam. Co-coach Michelle Bergman said she was worried because Moorpark had scored 2,000 fewer points than rival James E. Taylor High School from Texas did in its qualifying state tournament.

But on Friday, Moorpark scored 379 points more than the Texas school, which placed second with 49,846 points. Catholic Memorial High School from Wisconsin placed third with 47,595 points.

About 400 students had converged in Orange County Wednesday for the national contest, a battle of brains and stamina. On Thursday and Friday, they wrote essays, gave speeches, participated in interviews and took tests in economics, literature, social science, math, art and music.

During the exams, the students had to analyze poetry by Emily Dickinson, solve calculus problems and answer detailed biology questions about motor neurons.

On Friday, Moorpark students won the Super Quiz, a game-show style oral event that required the students to each answer five questions about the brain. After each correct answer, Moorpark fans cheered and waved pompoms.

In addition to being the top-scoring team in the nation, Moorpark also won the rookie award, given to the team that racks up the most points among schools that are making their first national finals appearance. Moorpark students also won in dozens of individual categories.

Jones said the team’s performance was especially rewarding because of a decathlon controversy earlier in the day. He and several coaches were concerned because DemiDec, a company in Woodland Hills that produces decathlon study materials, also wrote numerous test questions.

Academic Decathlon Board President Arnold Oates said 39 questions were thrown out Sunday morning to create a level playing field among the teams, some of which may not have used DemiDec’s study guides. All the tests were rescored.

Although the elimination of the questions may have lowered Moorpark’s score, Jones said he would “rather lose with it being fair than win with it not being fair.”

Now that the Academic Decathlon is over, the members of Moorpark’s squad said they plan to sleep, catch up on schoolwork and celebrate their victory.

“We’ve already gone to Disneyland,” Ellis said. “Now maybe we’ll go to the White House.”