Student decathletes from 19 Riverside County high schools competed in the Russian-themed, 30th Annual Riverside County Academic Decathlon at Heritage High School in Menifee on Saturday, Feb. 2. 

Hosted by Riverside County Office of Education, Saturday’s decathlon marked the final for Riverside County high schools where written tests and the team super quiz was conducted with an award ceremony soon following for recipients in first, second, and third place.

Medals were awarded for all categories, which included a decathlete competition one week prior on Jan. 26. The Jan. 26 competition consisted of individual categories for art, economics, essay, interview, language, literature, mathematics, music, science, social science and speech. The culminating event was the super quiz.

Each team – consisting of nine, highly-studied and Russia-absorbed students – participating in the decathlon is broken up into three categories. They are the varsity group, which consists of students who have a GPA of 0.0-2.99; the scholastic group, GPA of 3.0-3.75; and finally, the honors group, GPA of 3.75-4.0.

Tough Russia-themed multiple choice questions were asked to three decathletes at a time. After a very quick seven seconds to answer before the ring of a bell, a moderator sitting at the table with them graded each of their answers. Moderators then held up a score from one to three based on how many of the three decathletes marked the correct answer. A perfect score of three made fellow decathlete teams and guests shout and applaud for their fellow teammates.  

The super quiz proved to be a head-to-head match between Elsinore High School, Hemet High School and West Valley High School. West Valley went into the contest with a four year-in-a-row overall win. They were the team to beat. In the end of the big game, West Valley won the overall for their fifth consecutive year participating.

Team honors academic decathlete Julia Nista, of Hemet High School and first place winner of the speech category, regarding studying and preparation for the competition said, "I’ve been studying since about late July. We usually read as a Advertisement

[ Berry-Bell and Hall Mortuary ] group and discussed the resources as a group." 

As for her teammates and the emotions involved leading up to the event, Julia Nista said, "We are pretty much family. We all know each other really well. Leading up to the competition we were anxious and nervous because we’ve been working so many months for today and last Saturday."

The time between the decathlon and the award ceremony proved to be a long and anxious time for decathletes and their friends and family waiting in the theater. During that time, score keepers and counters were tallying up the final results. Once the award ceremony was underway, many winners were announced and medals were given.

Notable mention for first place in the honors Interview category was Lisa Whorl, of Moreno Valley High School. First place in Social Science for the scholastic group was Alfonso Martinez, of Elsinore High School. First place for Interview in the varsity category was Sabrina Rodgers, of Heritage High School.

During the awards ceremony, initially for the Super Quiz category, Hemet High School won first place, second place went to Elsinore High School and third place went to West Valley High School. 

Additionally, for the overall team category, first place went to West Valley High School, second place to Hemet High School and third place went to Elsinore High School.

In a bizarre twist of decathlon point tallying fate, while the trophy holders’ emotions settled, the Super Quiz and Overall category place winners were rearranged. 

The official order for Super Quiz became as followed: Elsinore High School first place, West Valley High School second place, and Hemet High School, third place. 

Final official results for Overall went to first place West Valley High School, second place Elsinore High School, and third place Hemet High School.

Team trophies were traded between the corrected officially judged teams.

West Valley High School will now be ensured a road trip to the California Decathlon taking place in Sacramento on March 14-17. Winners of that event will advance to the United States Academic Decathlon held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 24-27.