Moorpark Teens Tie for Second in Raucous National Super Quiz

Cheered on by a rowdy group of friends and family, Moorpark High School students tied for second place in the Super Quiz contest Friday in the U.S. Academic Decathlon.

J. Frank Dobie High School in Houston walked away with first place, answering 40 out of 45 questions correctly. In second place, with 36 correct answers, were Moorpark, Arizona’s Mountain View High School and defending champion Waukesha West High School of Wisconsin.

Although the Super Quiz counts for only a fraction of a team’s total score, it has often been a good indicator of the overall winner. But if the Moorpark students were disappointed, they weren’t showing it.

After the quiz, they hugged one another, asked to see their families and expressed a collective sigh of relief.

“I’m so excited right now,” senior Paul Ideal said. “It’s all over! No more pressure.”

The event -- a nerve-wracking, lightning-paced test of intelligence and composure -- is the only contest open to the public.

“It’s the one in which there’s a lot of pressure on the kids, and the kids know their parents and grandparents are watching,” said coach Larry Jones, who after 12 years has said this will be his last competition. “If the kids miss a question on the written exams, nobody knows. Here, it’s different.”

The Super Quiz involves two multiple-choice tests. Contestants completed one exam earlier in the day, then fielded the second round in front of the raucous supporters.

Many of the students on other teams cheered and gestured during the quiz, but the Moorpark decathletes stayed poker-faced most of the time.

“I really just zoned everything out and sang some Lenny Kravitz to myself,” said senior Lindsay Hebert, who got all five of her questions right. “I just took it question by question.”

Every year, the Academic Decathlon, or “aca-deca” as many call it, brings together hundreds of high school students from across the country and quizzes them on everything from the music of Chopin and Bach to oceanography.

This year’s theme was Understanding the Natural World. Students needed to know that the average depth of the ocean is 2.3 miles and that 50% of the coral in the Caribbean has disappeared in the last 40 years.

After their victory, the Texas decathletes were taking nothing for granted.

“It’s such a thrill to win, but this is just one part of the competition,” 18-year-old David Vanek of Houston said as his mom, Alice, enveloped him in a hug. “There’s a lot we won’t know until tomorrow.”

For the last decade, Moorpark High School has proved a force to reckon with in the highly competitive aca-deca scene.

Under Jones, the school has made it to the state-level competition eight times since 1993 and has finished either first or second for the last six years. Moorpark won its first national title in 1999.

But after 12 years and countless hours with the students in Room M4, Friday’s competition marks the end of the coaching road for Jones.

No one has yet stepped forward to fill Jones’ place, and the school next year probably will turn its focus to other academic competitions, Principal Anna Merriman said. That is why a win this year would be extra sweet.

“Everyone’s feeling this is kind of the end of the big game,” Merriman said. “It takes an incredibly talented coach to do this.”