A South Jersey middle schooler s-p-e-l-l-e-d her way into the finals of the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Cherry Hill, New Jersey’s Shruthika Padhy of Rosa International Middle School was among the 40 finalists still alive heading into Thursday’s final after the 11-year-old spelled fastuous and defibrillator correctly to advance in the premiere spelling competition.
Her spelling bee came to an end, though, in the tenth round of the finals when she misspelled 'quintain,' leaving out the 'a'.
On Thursday she correctly spelled causerie, sylloge, genipap and bodhran to advance into the final 15.
Shruthika's journey to the bee – her second-consecutive trip – included her correctly spelling sentries in her local spelling bee final.
In the end, 12-year-old Ananya Vinay from Fresno, California won the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee by spelling "marocain".
She gets more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
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Runner-up Rohan Rajeev missed the word "marram," a Scandinavian-derived word for beach grass.
Ananya's victory was the first time since 2013 that the bee has declared a single champion. It ended in a tie for three consecutive years.
The bee added a written tiebreaker test this year, but it didn't come into play.
