10 LAUSD TEAMS PARTICIPATE IN STATE ACADEMIC DECATHLON CHAMPIONSHIP

6:09 a.m. | KPCC Wire Services | KPCC

12 March 2010 -- Teams of students from 10 LAUSD schools and seven other schools in Los Angeles County will be in Sacramento today to compete in the four-day 31st annual California Academic Decathlon State Championship.

West High School of Torrance was the top finisher in the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon earlier this year, scoring 43,999 points out of a possible 60,000, narrowly defeating Keppel High School of Alhambra, which scored 43,741 points.

West and Keppel will both compete in the state championship, along with five other county high schools that scored high enough to qualify for the competition: Torrance (42,823 points), El Rancho High School of Pico Rivera (41,849), Beverly Hills (41,206), Redondo Union (40,979) and San Marino (40,194).

Marshall High School won the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon by scoring 48,655.9 points.

Nine other LAUSD teams qualified as wild card teams: El Camino Real (48,395.3), Granada Hills (47,428.8), San Pedro (41,592.6), Garfield (41,548), Palisades (41,509.7), Hamilton (41,405.8), Franklin (41,224.4), Poly (40.617.2) and Narbonne (39,720.8).

Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic of Marshall was the top individual scorer in the LAUSD competition with 8,933.6 points.

The top-scoring student at the county competition was Jordan Smolinsky, a senior at West High School, with 8,525 points out of a possible 10,000. Patrick Xiao, a senior from West, was second with 8,215 points and Shao Yi Qian, a junior from Alhambra High School was third with 7,972 points.

Both decathlons focused on the French Revolution.

The winner of the state competition will advance to the U.S. Academic Decathlon on April 21-24 in Omaha, Neb. More than 500 students from 62 schools across the state will compete in the statewide competition.

Last year's state champion, Moorpark High School in Ventura County, went on to win the national competition. Los Angeles Unified School District teams have won 10 national titles since 1987.