Study Break: Congratulations!

Congratulations to the scholars from Moorpark High School, winners of the Ventura County Academic Decathlon for the sixth time in 10 years.

Hard work, dedicated coaching and parental support--plus a little extra effort and / or luck--carried the nine-member team to victory over 19 other area high schools. Moorpark scored a total of 43,278 points, beating second-place Santa Susana High School by more than 5,000 points. Oxnard High School came in third.

We’d offer three cheers but we don’t want to disturb the team members. They’re already back to their studies, preparing to challenge 49 teams in the state finals next month in Los Angeles. Even a rally has been put on hold for now.

“We need to focus,” team coach Larry Jones told The Times. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Members of the Moorpark High team are: Kristina Ackermann, Mahdi Gad, Matt Gray, Ashwin Jayant, Mike Morimoto, Brittanny O’Hanlon, Zach Ramirez, Judieann Tadeo, Jerome Yang, with alternates Michelle Kim and Sumeet Mitter.

We salute the members of all 20 teams--and wish Moorpark good luck in the next round.