A Winning Combination
A high five, three cheers and hearty congratulations to scholars from Moorpark High School who outsmarted teams from 38 other states to win the national Academic Decathlon, a leading scholastic competition.
Although California teams have finished in the top three in 17 of the past 18 years, Moorpark High is the first Ventura County school to win the national title. If the geography section of the competition had included the question “Where on Earth is Moorpark?” it’s likely that none of the other teams would have had a clue. But they know the answer to that now.
The price of victory was nearly a year of long hours and hard work for Moorpark’s squad--Ari Shaw, who is a junior, and seniors Arturo Barragan, Alexandra Dove, John Ellis, Valerie Lake, Nick Lange, Mitul Patel and Rebecca Wershba and their coaches, Larry Jones and Michelle Bergman. The students took more than 500 sample tests, rehearsed their speeches more than 100 times, did about 30 practice interviews and read each required novel four times.
“It’s an amazing group of youngsters,” said history teacher Jones, who has helped coach the team for seven years and said this year would be his last. “It’s been a dream to win, and the dream came true . . . .”
The Moorpark High School Academic Decathlon team reminds us all that high expectations plus plenty of hard work make a winning combination.
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