California girl wins bee, but 2 local boys stand tall
Two Houston-area spellers Thursday night made it deep into the finals of the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md.
Raksheet Kota, a 14-year-old from Katy, was knocked out with only five spellers left after misspelling “oedemerid.” Shourav Dasari, a 14-year-old from Spring, exited with three other competitors remaining.
Ananya Vinay, 12, of Fresno, Calif., won with “marocain,” the French word for dress fabric made of ribbed crepe.
“I’m so happy,” the sixth-grader said.
It was Raksheet’s first time going to the national spelling bee, but he easily spelled difficult words through multiple rounds.
His twin sister, also a competitive speller, closed her eyes as he carefully spelled words such as “bouchee” or “izzat.”
Raksheet missed qualifying last year after he struck out with “ailsyte,” a rock composed of alkalic migrogranite.
Now 14 and in his last year to compete, Raksheet finally made the cut for the national bee.
Shourav started spelling competitively a year after his sister, Shobha, brought home a flyer advertising the elementary school spelling bee. Shobha took home top honors at the Houston Public Media Spelling Bee and qualified for the Scripps national competition four times.
She has since aged out of the competition, but her brother Shourav was doing his best to fill his big sister’s shoes.
On Thursday evening, he breezed through words “concours” and “oncochaeta.” During the 10th round with only six spellers left, he carefully spelled “pterygoideus.”
Last year, Shourav told the Chronicle his training is a year-round effort that takes up about eight hours a week. His efforts paid off when he won the 2015 MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee and the 2015 North South Foundation Spelling Bee.
Shourav was the tallest speller on stage at 5 feet 11 inches. Shourav has grown 4 inches in the past year.
He would keep his hands inside the pocket of his black Nike hoodie and went through the motions of asking a few questions — definition, language of origin — about words he clearly knew. In the spelling bee equivalent of a bat flip in baseball, he turned away and began walking toward his seat before he even heard the words “you’re correct” from a judge.