Two SoCal kids make finals of Scripps National Spelling Bee

Two Southe Califoia elementary and middle school students — from Culver City and Corona — are advancing to the final round of the 89th aual Scripps National Spelling Bee, held in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

All six students from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Beardino counties who made it to the bee, held this year in National Harbor, Maryland, made it through to the preliminaries Wednesday, spelling both their words correctly.

Daniel Chen, 13, a seventh-grader at Loving Savior of the Hills Lutheran School in Chino Hills, correctly spelled “epitaphs” and “panorama” during Wednesday’s preliminaries.

Cooper Komatsu, 13, an eighth-grader at Culver City Middle School in Culver City, correctly spelled “tagasaste” (a type of evergreen tree) and “adventitious” (meaning “to come from outside”) correctly. Cooper is no stranger to words that would terrify adults: Last year, he and his teammate won the North American School Scrabble Championship.

Aisha K. Randhawa, 10, a fifth-grader at Garretson Elementary School in Corona, spelled “colcaon” (a traditional Irish dish) and “discountenance” (meaning “refuse to look with favor upon) correctly.

Ethan Thomas Gomulka, 11, a sixth-grader at Del Rosa Christian School in San Beardino, spelled “hellebore” (a type of flowering plant) and “mobocrat” (“one of favors the rule of the masses”) correctly.

Samuel Littrell, 14, an eighth-grader at Kraemer Middle School in Placentia, spelled “tragopan” (a type of bird also known as “hoy pheasants”) and “scenographer” (one who designs a stage, television or movie set) correctly.

Kaylee Kim, 13, an eighth-grader at Fort Irwin Middle School in Fort Irwin, correctly spelled “iridescent” and “sarment,” a botany term for a slender ruing stem.

But it’s not just getting words wrong that prevents competitors (called “spellers” by the bee) from getting to the final rounds — these 285 kids are very, very good at spelling, after all. The students who get all the words correct in the preliminary round are then ranked based on how well they did in a computerized vocabulary and spelling test taken Tuesday moing.

Only the top 45 students then move on to the final round.

When the spelling was over, it was Cooper and Aisha who had made it through into the semi-finals.

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“Oh my God, we’re just stued, obviously. What a crazy, crazy thing to experience,” Aisha’s father, Happy Randhawa, said after. “We’re absolutely thrilled.”

Aisha had spent months preparing for this day, but she still felt nervous, especially when it came to “discountenance,” which wasn’t on the partial list of words competitors had gotten ahead of time.

“I overcame my nerves, but I was nervous,” she said.

But she almost didn’t make it into the semi-finals, as her score Tuesday was borderline.

“So if I got one point less, I would have been out,” she said.

The Randhawas will be spending Wednesday night doing last minute test prep — but only after they go out for a celebratory dier.

“We’re not going to break our promise to her,” Happy Randhawa said. “We’re going to take her out to get Thai food.”

Cooper hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up too high before Wednesday’s competition.

“I kept saying, ‘if I make it to the finals,’ kind of like wishful thinking,” he said, out with his family eating a celebratory dier of Mexican food. (You can take the kid out of Southe Califoia, but not the SoCal out of the kid.) “I tried to calm down and not doubt myself and think, ‘I got this.’”

For 235 other students, though, Wednesday was the end of their road in this year’s spelling bee.

“I obviously could have done better, but I’m pretty happy with where I got to,” Placentia’s Samuel said. “This year, I was a lot busier than I was in previous years, so my study time was cut down.”

This was his second and last time at the bee — the competition isn’t open to ninth-graders — but Samuel is happy that he was able to improve on his performance from two years ago, when he didn’t make the semi-finals.

“I’m just glad that I made it that far,” San Beardino’s Ethan said after. “I’m just glad that I made it to Round Three.”

He has three more years of eligibility and has already started figuring out how to prepare.

“Next year, I don’t think I’m going to do that much different,” he said. “I’m just going to go deeper on (word) roots and do more preparation.”

It just gets tougher from here: After two consecutive years of ties, contest organizers have made changes to increase the difficulty of the final round. The students are competing for more than $45,000 in cash and prizes.

“I was really excited to get to the nationals,” Cooper said. “My goal was to get to the finals, and I think it’s asking too much of myself to expect more.”

Whatever happens on Thursday, the Randhawas are just thrilled with the whole week.

“It’s an amazing experience because you meet all these other kids who are on the same wavelength and love to spell,” Aisha’s mother Simmi Randhawa said.

The 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee finals will be aired starting Thursday at 7 a.m. Pacific on ESPN2, with the second half aired at 5 p.m. on ESPN.

Try the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee Preliminaries Test, which includes spelling and vocabulary questions. Test yourself online at Spellingbee.com/ sample-test.